Aug 11

16C cloudy.

August is almost half over and we never really saw summer except for a couple of days.

Bowls again this am.

More Forestry.

Forest Management

In earlier paragraphs, I described the past role Forest Officers, today the day to day supervision of depletion of the forest inventory has been turned over to the logging companies. In the case of Tree Farm Licenses, Forestry Officials were instructed that they could not visit logging operations except for a once yearly “audit”. The audit sites were chosen by the company and the Forest Officer was escorted to the chosen sites.

In the case of other types of tenure there is still some freedom for ministry staff to carry out spot checks and levy fines for infractions. However the routine inspection has disappeared along with progressive mapping. In some districts the forest officer routinely uses licensee provided information to up date his records.

As centralization of Forestry offices has been furthered the ability to be current on logging activities as declined.

Ironically, even at this time after staffing cuts, there are upwards of three times the number of staff producing a quarter of the work that was done prior to 1979. This can mainly be attributed to specialization of roles. Unfortunately it has become a source of levity for some to note that on any given day up to three government vehicles can arrive on the same log landing, usually with two people in the cab each to carry out a special function. Sadly there was a time when one vehicle would have arrived with one Forest Officer who would have carried out all three jobs as a routine part of his normal work day.