This week: Why you wouldn’t want a Woodlot e tried logging an W imaginary TFL last week and we didn’t do - too well. We ran out of trees. If we ttied a. Forest Licence instead; we would have had the same. problem. The only real dif- ference: between a Tree Farm ‘Licence and a Forest Licence is that the logging company has more responsibility. Silviculture respon- sibilities are the same but with a TFL you have to take care of things like mapping, keeping an inventory and volume calculations. ‘With a Forest Licence the Ministry of Forests worries about all those things. So let’s go for a smaller operation. Let’s take on a Woodlot Licence instead. . ‘As we have already explained, a Woodlot licence is nothing more than a mini-TFL, and as of 1978 this form of tenure makes up one “percent of the province’s total AAC (Annual Allowable Cut). The -only real difference is one of scale. A TFL can be hundreds of thou- sands of hectares in size, while a Woodlot can be no larger than 400 hectares of Crown-owned land, combined with any size of privately owned land. In most cases this Crown owned land is adjacent to the private property, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be several miles away. Woodlot licences were originally designed to add a bit of wood to the market and at the same time give farmers, who sometimes had large tracts of forest in their dgri- cultural holdings, sométhing to do - when they weren’t farming and make a little money on the side. Well, we happen to own a bit of forested land, so let’s go for it. In making application for our Woodlot, we find there are a few rules to adhere to. The land we own must make up 20 percent of the total package, our licence will be good for a period of 15 years, and we have to renew it every five years. Technically, though, we can keep renewing the licence forever. Also, we can’t sit around and wait for the trees to fall down. We have to cut at least 1,000 cubic metres of wood every year but at the same time we can’t cut any more than 1,500. This is starting to look good. If the wood is worth $46 per cubic meter at the mill and we cut 1,500 cubic meters every year we're looking at $69,000 in extra cash every year. So Iet’s pick Forestry by Tod Strachan, | in i consultation with Rod Amold and | Doug Davies up the licence, borrow a few hun- dred dollars from the bank for a chain saw, and become weekend loggers. e do have a bit of a W problem, though. Just exactly how do you go about cutting down a forest? No problem at all. You just go out and hire a logging contractor. He knows how to do it. Wrong. A logging contractor knows he can’t make any money moving all his equipment into an area for less than 100 loads of logs, so it looks like we’re going to have to cut down our forest by ourselves. If we read the fine print in our licence, though, we'll find a loop- hole. We aren’t supposed to cut any more than 1,500 cubic meters of wood each year but we’re allowed to average that over five Days by Mary Ann Burdett Well, Riverboat Days has come and gone for another year, and this week the Riverboat Days Society wishes to salute **the people of Terrace and all visitors to Riverboat Days’’. If it had not been for the ef- forts of the businesses, the clubs, the organizations and the citizens of Terrace, Riverboat Days would be miniscule indeed in comparison to the weekend of activities we all enjoyed the se- cond through the sixth of Au- gust. Starting with the involve- ment of the City of Terrace in their openhouse on Thursday night, the presentation of tro- phies to the businesses who had participated in the dressing-up and window-decorating aspects of the week and the-display of vintage cars, through to the wind up game of ball in River- side Park, the weekend was a success; interesting, exciting and just plain great to be involved with, . In between there were the chil: dren’s events, the arts and cul- ture displays, the barbecues, the boat races, the music, the danc- ing, the slingers’ races and Riverboat =‘ barrel-rolling, and right out in front the involvement of the Seniors Games group who seem- ed to be everywhere at once with their tickets, their races and then turning into dancers — terrific participation. The Parade — again, terrific participation from the com- munity and a great job of organ- ization. The floats were incredi- ble-and showed many hours of hard work on behalf of the en- trants; it took some hard work on the part of the judges to make winning decisions. To all the people who gave of them- selves and their time to make this weekend special to Terrace and to all the visitors who joined us, participated in the activities and enjoyed our community for a weekend, we say thank you and a special thanks to all as- pects of the media who took our messages and events to the.peo- ple throughout the northwest. Now, while most of Terrace is just remembering the highlights of that weekend and tooking at it as being past and done, the Riverboat Days Society Ex- ecutive has already held a meet- ing and started the ground work for 1991 activities. From the The final salute “"me =~ sounds of the plans it is going to take a full year to get everything organized, and there should be some new and very special addi- tions to Riverboat Days for 1991. It is also going to take a great deal of the time and en- thusiasm we have come to expect from the people in this area, and it is going to be worth all the ef- fort required. As plans finalize and next year draws closer yuu will be hearing more of the plots and plans. Meanwhile, watch for the an- nouncements of a general meet- ing of the Riverboat Days Socie- ty in October, where no doubt there will be advance discussions’ of all that is in the wind for next year. Remember that all volun- teers are welcome and all ideas will be received with gratitude. All positions on the executive will be up for election at the Oc- tober meeting and, for anyone who finds the ramblings of this writer irritating, this job too is open to ideas, suggestion and to be turned over to an interested party. Thanks again to the people of Terrace for a successful River- boat Days 1990, and now let’s start things rolling for 1991. years. What this means is that we can cut five years worth in the first year — 7,500 cubic meters — then lic low for four years before cut- ting another five years’ worth. If we stop to think about this, though, we are likely to come to the conclusion that this is a bigger trap than the licence itself was in the first place. For this volume of wood, we might be able to get a contractor to come in and cut our trees, but in reality he’s the only one that’s going to make any money, and we’re probably going to run out of trees much sooner than if we had. cut only 1,500 cubic metres of wood each year. It’s a good thing we’re thinking this out before we begin. If we’re not careful we could end up both penniless and treeless, We’re going to have to be careful, and good business sense tells us that we're going to have to do the logging ourselves. So let’s grab that chain saw and head for the bush. It's difficult to know where to Start, but we know the difference between a good tree and a bad one so let's find the very best. We cut our first 1,500 cubic meters, find a way to get the logs trucked to a local sawmill, and while we wait for a cheque we contemplate how we're going to pay the bills. At a price of around $46 per cubic meter the mill owes us $69,000. Our costs for cutting and getting those trees to the mill, though, came to 60 percent of that figure, $41,400. But that’s okay. We've still got $27,600. Right? Wrong. We have to replant the trees that we cut, at the rate of 1,400 seedlings per hectare. And in order to cut our $69,000 worth of trees we cleared five hectares of land. ‘Yes, we have to plant 7,000 little trees... right now. his is-a little more work than we had originally contemplated. It came as a bit of a shock when we dis- covered that we had to collect the seed from our forest ourselves, send those seeds to the govern- ment, who would in tum send them to the nursery of our choice, and then we had to turn around and pay good cash for the seed- lings the nursery grew with the seeds we collected at our own cost. In fact from seed to seedling, we're told, it’s going to cost us 26 cents per tree. And this is before they’re planted. Planting. We know even less about planting trees than cutting them so wisdom dictaies we hire a - professional tree planter to put our 26 cent seedlings into the ground. We could, of course, take the wife and kids out into the bush for a weekend of fun, but we tried plant- ing a garden a few years earlier and this is clearly a very bad idea. So, at 35 cents a tree we get a pro- fessional to stick our 26-cent trees into the ground. This comes to a grand total of $4,270, but we still have $23,330 left... Don’t we? Wrong. After two years of watching our seedlings grow (we hope) we have to shell out $350 for a regeneralion survey. Later, there’s $800 per hectare to pay for brushing and weeding, and we can -expect to have to do this to at least half of the five acres we logged. And after eight to 14 years, we’re going to have to spend another $750 for a free-to-grow survey. But this will still leave us $20,230. Right? Wrong. We haven’t really told you the bad news yet. There’s stumpage to pay. Now if you — Gontinued on page A8 Letter to the Editor What priorities? What action? To the Editor; What ere the priorities of our city council? Regarding the in- stallation of a garbage recycling depot in Terrace, they have re- sponded to the pleas of a local recycling group by doing NO. thing. They now want photographs of “Big Bertha in action.’ Don’t they know that “Big Bertha’ never did act? When will they? Chris Dale, Terrace, B.C. Joh n Pifer ===" Continued from page A6 Now they are making me damn mad. I'll never vote NDP. But I'll never vote for that man again, cither,”’ he concluded. He knows that a no-show is almost as good as a vote for .— the NDP, but he will still be w able to hold his head up and say he never voted for the “‘socialists’’. . It’s an interesting. attitude. which may well be echoed across. the province come elcc- tion day.