Two sides of the forest

Excerpt

While conservation authorities are well-established in Ontario and have received international recognition (e.g. Krause et al. 2000), British Columbia community forests are less developed and have a shorter history. These two approaches have, however, shared similarities in policy and practice. They are similar in their orientation to forest, water, and soil resources; both tend to inherit degraded land bases; as local resource agencies, each holds an intermediate role between residents and senior governments; each has provincially assigned management rights over lands that represent significant, often contentious, community values.

A main difference is that conservation authorities in Ontario represent a provincial-municipal partnership, in principle, based on provincial funding and technical support, while community forests are to be self-sufficient and pay Crown timber harvesting fees (or “stumpage”) to the province. The British Columbia government, with its community forest model, is pursing community forestry to provide economic opportunities for communities, not to create more parks. However, an expanded role for community forests in conservation, hazard management, and recreation is conceivable, given shifting public forest values and growing interest in local control (Robinson et al., 2001).

Community forests

Ongoing discussion of community forestry remains focused on substantive and …