tAN^DIANA ’JAI^ 5 1988 The Forest Land Use Workshop Environment Council of Alberta The Forest Land Use Workshop Renewable Resources Sub-Committee Public Advisory Committees to the Environment Council of Alberta June 19, 1987 Edmonton, Alberta Distributed without charge as a public service. bJ-f :: " .A ' •\' ' .. r. ■'''' , rii:, !=:■• ii'fi:-'' “' -'V^^'^,.-ft^’»>i await >r4>ioO<’'#8^vUA aik>i.'^ ^ . *!."■■ stwdiA k. liwmO , V’ ikli!'' ''''■' i''' 'V. ^ !k'2: ' '■' . . t-. •' .' . ■ . . di -: fm " ■ ^^''v .. .. h- ■! '*": '*'1J|W 'Ji»»4K|R|(ifO < / , _ - ■>' . ■ v.'-- y. At » 'i i\^\. '’ b.'fe FOREWORD The Public Advisory Committee to the Environment Council provides valuable advice to the provincial government on emerging environmental issues. With representatives from a diverse range of public interest groups, industry associations, concerned individuals and government organizations, it also provides an excellent forum for bringing together differing perspectives and interests to discuss common environmental concerns . Since 1984, a major project of the Public Advisory Committee (PAC) has been the development of an Alberta Conservation Strategy. This strategy is based in part on the World Conservation Strategy that Canada endorsed in 1981. The National Task Force on Environment and Economy, which reports to the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers, confirmed in their final report to CCREM in September of 1987 that every province and territory should develop its own conservation strategy . In the development of Alberta’s Conservation Strategy, PAC is preparing a number of reports describing various resource sectors, such as minerals, forestry, agriculture, and tourism. A major focus of these reports is the interactions among these different sectors . The Renewable Resources Subcommittee of PAC is playing a leading role in the preparation of the Forestry sectoral report. On June 19, 1987, this subcommittee held a special workshop to discuss the relationships among the many users of Alberta’s forests. Special guests were invited to complement the user groups already represented on the subcommittee, such as trappers, recreationists , and commercial forest managers. The workshop focussed on five questions, dealing with defining these relationships , resolving differences, and examining the future of forest management in Alberta. During the morning session, the workshop was divided into different user groups: agriculture, natural habitat, logging, non-renewable resources, and recreation. After each group developed responses to the workshop questions, they reconvened for the afternoon plenary session at which the perspectives of each user group were discussed in a lively and informal manner. The workshop was highly successful and provided valuable insights for preparing the Forestry sectoral report. The following pages contain the notes recorded during the morning group sessions and an edited transcript of the afternoon plenary discussion . « 'V-.' “ ' ... . '-^li 7/P I (^^fv i*f' ‘Ji^ 7'rt4iwio"» vf!:a 'c>-; '^ j ?. . 'v'pf' r'-u f '\ ‘.■v\ :}%^ 4i «r!'^!;/(..’ .. q, i* M •Ig- .v4?rtfV!\f: 1=>- Uj^ '&XTV '>'it 'i;'..'-i;»,-iJ^ ;t*f ■Sl<^p,;c Tse -^\>''5ii.b« ^:’ fc/pH ?r)r<'cib- .sSf,ap-V0, ■^vt~^jiV.-' b?-^. ■; '3-q r' .O'- !■’ i».‘ ^nivio^aA i.i^ob . '..p ,- 7., pn^oJM ’■'.•* . <5=tTfiMit^- ftX ."to -v -bnp .■.©ip-^ii^srJAqb ' eqi-''C^.p 'v©«f ' ;*;)rw 3 -’ :><■ '^.>, »o'../ '-ifiq' , »ft'j?.4^^ ,isV.. '‘■'■■6-?o ' ,>cr,-‘-'..ar,-v ,pn:4|5g--i.i. ,;trjrj-4.sU>4. i'p'tc' , art,.-' -^0-: ' .‘•■..j.C^.- .v^iJ:^-‘L‘p f;'rr.K)4 r‘w *fi:;' oj );>«3^prov':>jb 4wc*i^ , ajjc '-'q ':-2u n:’r.-'ai 70 't7 :--fl.l !ipJ'.M>f \,rt6;;t-i?.a‘? ■' v •...t'^ j'vP ~'’’j,;fV ;•’ = ’ '*^17 • qc i-L> vi'<-«vi .t N ',q- .■ ■.•uor ib ^ "" Aa'^ ©^#?Mjroy ;i»t^j/vOTV^ bfir '«r«- ^ 99>Son i->0 '•.tc;^-iio:> ^..AiwoXl-0. ♦i^.T .'J - r O-^.’ X/v .s<^ .v'- Pv -. %' = ■ Uil ,.i'V 7 CONTENTS MORNING SESSION l Questions to be Discussed 1 Notes from Discussion Groups Logging Group Habitat Group Agriculture Group Non-Renewable Resources Group Recreation Group AFTERNOON SESSION 12 Transcript of Plenary Discussion 12 WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS 77 cNj m 00 m V Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 ■/ https://archive.org/details/forestlandusewor00envi_0 MORNING SESSION Questions to be Discussed Following introductory remarks, participants split up into small discussion groups to develop responses to the following questions from the perspective of their particular usergroup. Defining Relationships 1 ) How does the group you represent interact with each of the other forest uses (logging, natural habitat, agriculture, non-renewable resources, recreation)? Give examples of positive and negative interactions. 2) From your perspective, what are the main sources of conflict with other forest users? e.g. direct interference with your use of the resource access, confrontation, etc. reduction of the quantity or quality of the resource timber, wildlife, forage, trails , aesthetics , etc . other. . . Resolving Differences 3) What mechanisms have been successful in avoiding or resolving conflicts? Give examples . 4) What mechanisms have been unsuccessful in avoiding or resolving these conflicts? Give examples . 5) What have been the main barriers to successfully resolving such conflicts? e.g. inadequate planning inadequate communication lack of consideration by other users for your needs other . . . Looking to the Future 6) What future trends do you envisage for your use of the forest and for the relationships described in question 1 to 5? 2 Notesfrom Discussion Groups The following notes were derived from the flip charts recorded by the facilitators of the individual user group discussions . Logging Group Les Barlow, Daryl D’Amico, Helmut Hohne, Brian MacDonald , TomVarty, Rick Watson, Tim Williamson , Paul Woodard, Jack Wright, Ken Nelson ( Facilitator ) There was some resentment towards the designation as the "Logging" group. It was suggested that this group be referred to as "Forest Managers." This group discussed their interactions with other forest users, using trapping as a familiar example. The principles apply to other users as well. Their flip chart notes have been rearranged to fit the questions posed. Question 1 - Interactions T rapping - annual meetings on harvest plans - daily contact in the field Question 2 - Main sources of conflict - erosion of the forester’s land base due to allocations to other users. - groups that want single uses provide the major conflicts. - habitat preservationists and wilderness groups want to carve out separate areas . Trapping : - trapline boundaries are indistinct and don’t follow topographic features . - traplines are small in size and tend to cross areas slated for timber harvesting . - concealing the traplines is necessary from the trapper’s point of view, but makes it impossible to avoid them when harvesting timber. - road closures: forestry is supposed to close roads , trappers want to keep them open . Question 3 - Successful mechanisms Suggestions to avoid conflicts with trapping : - reduce the number of traplines. - restrict trapping to full-time operators . - plan traplines for 50-year periods. - make allocations of harvesting fibre and fur more compatible. Have them issued by the same agency. - look at boundaries for the annual timber harvest that would encompass a variety of types of area: overmature, cutover, regeneration , riparian, etc. - stream buffers - regeneration : scarifying 3 - prefer "partnership" with trappers rather than miscommunication and confrontation - forest managers have made progress with other users, e.g. shared access costs . Question 4 - Unsuccessful mechanisms - government is either unaware of the allocation problem between trappers and forest managers, or is not trying to solve it. - government and land management by "clamour." - support the concept of Integrated Resource Management but not the process underway in Alberta. Forest managers will not compromise good forest management . - Integrated Resource Planning tends to polarize the issues. It is still the best mechanism, but it has to be improved. The concept is right, but the results are too political. Question 5 - Barriers to resolving conflict - the public doesn’t understand forest management . - the public’s fear of change - the forest industry is plagued by the memory of an unsuccessful attempt at reforestation of St. Regis’ Camp One, early in their history (Myth of Camp 1 ). - the lack of relevant data and alternatives to unpopular forest management techniques, such as herbicides and pesticides. - the stereotype problem - it works both ways. re trapping : - the trapper is often not the actual owner of the trapline. - some trappers don’t trap full time. - government priority is to cut overmature timber first. Question 6 - Future outlook - the 80-year rotation has to be thought through. Plans should be sensitive to local areas and problems. - forest managers believe in what they do in the forest. - they respect the resource and if they don’t manage it well, they face more interference . - responsibility for managing land should be given to one agency. It should have the authority to manage. - there should be agreement on common objectives. - those who are given responsibility for forest management should be allowed to do it. - it’s about time to start talking about what forest managers do to everyone who will listen. The conservation strategy offers an opportunity to do this. - a broad and general conservation strategy is needed, one that accomodates Integrated Resource Management and recognizes the role of the Forest Management Agreement . - it should not be necessary to compromise good forest management which enhances the goals of the conservation strategy. 4 Habitat Group Nelson Barber, Lyle Fullerton, Maryhelen Posey, Joan Snyder, Jack Wooders, Brian Free ( Facilitator ) Question 1 - Interactions It was decided to consider logging and silviculture separately. Logging : - eliminates habitat for certain species. These are usually species for which other habitat protection or creation programs do not exist, e.g. tree frogs, pine marten, grizzlies, caribou, owls, and many others . - creates or modifies habitat favouring other species, such as deer, elk, moose, sheep. - logging activity disturbs wildlife . - alters the hydrologic regime, e.g. increased runoff, siltation. Silviculture : - creates a single-aged monoculture. This will favour some "adaptable" species which will then become abundant. Agriculture - the main agricultural activity in the forest is grazing - eliminates most undergrowth - competition with wildlife for forage - streambank erosion, siltation - there is a growing interest in draining peat bogs Non-Renewable Resources - spraying of rights-of-way to control vegetation - habitat is eliminated by mining and oil and gas activities - access to remote and critical habitat is increased. This may be the most important interaction . - pollution and siltation of watercourses - reclamation is seldom to the original habitat type Recreation - recreation activities disturb wildlife - erosion, trampling, pollution - some wildlife management is achieved through controlled recreation activities e.g. hunting, fishing - stocking, transplanting, and introduction of alien species for hunting or fishing Question 2 - Main sources of conflict - reduction in the quantity and quality of habitat. - access to remote habitat - regulations agreed to are not being followed e.g. guidelines for cutblocks, buffer zones around watercourses , debris in creeks 5 Question 3 - Successful mechanisms - fencing off streams to exclude cattle - most of the examples of successful mechanisms are found outside of Alberta - private ownership of the forest induces stewardship - the US Forest Service recognizes all uses of the forest. We could learn a lot from American practices. - selective harvesting - realistic stumpage fees to cover the full cost of forest management - Champion Forest Products in Hinton have been attempting to introduce some new ideas into forest management with respect to habitat for caribou , but have not received support from the government Question 4 - Unsuccessful mechanisms - there are no guidelines for disease control by salvage logging Question 5 - Barriers to resolving conflict - guidelines are inadequate for habitat protection - there is inadequate staff and budget for the Fish & Wildlife Division - education of forest management personnel is needed with respect to their attitude and the meaning of multiple use of public lands. - public consultation occurs, but the results are often changed. Integrated Resource Plans are changed by senior levels of government. Politics have too great a role. - zoning reduces flexibility - there is inadequate management in the field. Wardens no longer live in the forest and are not as familiar with what is going on. Question 6 - Future outlook - there will be increasing competition for the land base, usually at the expense of habitat - there is a systematic degradation of habitat. - species diversity will decrease - genetic diversity of remaining species will decrease - ecological reserves are finally being established. More are needed. - silvicultural practices will become more intensive - improved technologies may produce more fibre product from less forest. - selective harvesting will enhance habitat - more conflicts are going to end up in court - the outlook for some species is very bleak, e.g. woodland caribou, grizzlies, wolves, lynx, wolverine, marten, certain plants .. . Agriculture Group Cecil Blackburn, Clark Fawcett, Elsie Friesen, Harvey Gardner, Kim Sanderson ( Facilitator ) 6 Question 1 - Interactions Positive interactions - hunting achieves some measure of predator control - roads allow easier access for maintenance, placement of salt licks, fire control, etc. - re-seeding to desirable species along roads - spraying programs for forestry to control scrub poplar, willow, etc. Negative interactions - access, especially with respect to recreation - grazing overlaps with hunting season - localized problem of wild ungulates getting into winter feed stocks - spraying programs by forestry to control pests Question 2 - Main sources of conflict - irresponsible management leads to water quality decline e.g. poor forestry practices lead to erosion which affects water used by cattle, problems with cattle having direct access to watercourses . - encroachment by scrub poplar, aspen: At what point should succession be halted, e.g. left for grazing, proceed to mature forest? Question 3 - Successful mechanisms - communication: avoid one-way "education" - break down stereotypes, find common ground - hunter education programs - Integrated Resource Planning: good public involvement in planning but should have continued participation after the plan has been approved. - need more casual interaction to widen each user’s perspective - PAC brings together people from different groups and gives them a chance to interact constructively . - initiatives by user groups, e.g. some groups provide speakers for schools, invite people to tour their farms - Use Respect program - Rural Crime Watch program Question 4 - Unsuccessful mechanisms - heavy handedness - regulations imposed from top down with no consultation - public hearings have mixed success - depends on purpose. Panel, and public perception re "sincerity " Question 5 - Barriers to resolving conflict - bureaucratic narrowmindedness , and a lack of hands-on experience and familiarity with day-to-day problems of people in the field - people with extreme positions and unreasonable demands. This often results from a lack of information 7 Question 6 - Future outlook - designated routes for off-road vehicles and other designated routes for hikers and horses. Organized groups should be responsible for trail maintenance and upkeep. - use of Alberta Conservation Strategy as conflict resolution technique. - encourage more discussion, interaction, such as this workshop - possibility of less multiple use in some areas i.e. more single or dual use - look at alternatives such as more common pasture and taking cattle out of the forest Non-Renewable Resources Group Mike Allen, Ken Crane, Brian Meller, David Porter, John Lilley (Facilitator) Question 1 - Interactions Positive interactions - activities related to non-renewable resources improve access for all users, fire control, etc. - reduced need for other corridors - clearings provide enhanced habitat Negative interactions - short-term alienation of land base for other uses - improved access for other users may have negative results. - problem with use of common corridor, e.g. safety for users of access roads - larger clearings impact on all users - clearing for non-renewable resources infringes on logging - restricted access to facility sites - some removal of productive agricultural land - power lines may impact on large birds - use of herbicides affects habitat Question 2 - Main sources of conflict - different users want to use the same resource - increased access increases the interaction among users - with larger clearings, there is a greater likelihood of single use (exclusive of other uses) - some uses may be limited or restricted. - interactions among users are sometimes not anticipated by government legislation and planning. - there is incomplete understanding of other uses: their needs, benefits and impacts . - mistrust among government, industry, and the public - pressure for single use designations and "no-go” options. - shifting political moods may result in conflicts among users because of changes in perception of their "rights.” Question 3 - Successful mechanisms (A conflict is resolved if a decision is obtained. Thi"' f^^ons that most mechanisms are "successful . ” ) 8 - company philosophy and public trust are important factors in most successful mechanisms . - community advisory committees: industry, government and the public exchange information on development issues . - public consultation on a multi-group or group-industry basis - industry group responsible for face to face discussion of concerns and mitigation - government regulatory processes (e.g. EIA) require consideration of other uses and public consultation. This has prompted the use of a lot of processes . - Integrated Resource Planning process works well at times, but not always. - adjudication. Boards, etc. - negotiations - settlements and concessions Question 4 - Unsuccessful mechanisms - resolving problems when rules or rights of the users are unclear or are in conflict (lack of structure for process) - it is important to note that some options are simply not negotiable nor acceptable - adjudication: may decide or resolve a conflict but usually prefer to avoid this approach because outcome uncertain and uncontrollable Question 5 - Barriers to resolving conflict - lack of trust - misunderstanding of benefits - lack of sensitivity to other interests (monologue versus dialogue) - incomplete understanding of other users - outcome uncertain - lack of political will to make a decision Question 6 - Future outlook - use of our forests will increase - much of the present use for non-renewable resources will be returned to the forest land base - use of herbicides will be restricted - continued demand for accountability by all users - increase in non-negotiable issues - increase in acceptance of other uses - an integrated planning process will receive more attention - more precedent-setting agreements will be available to provide guidance . - more public involvement in industrial activities - awareness, participation, liaison committees Recreation Group Dave Dodge, Janis McLean-Hayden , Bob Richardson, Louise Sherran, Guy Swinnerton, Cal Webb ( Facilitator ) 9 Question 1 - Interactions With Forestry : Positive - provision of access - provision of facilities (e.g. campgrounds) Negative - provision of access is sometimes negative - scenery - authenticity - integrity of the natural environment - habitat and variety of species - pollution of streams, siltation With Agriculture (grazing) : Positive - could be used for vegetation management Negative - grazing in unique habitats - restriction of public access (e.g. grazing reserves) - ecological competition (e.g. with wild ungulates for food, introduction of alien plant species) - trampling riparian habitat With Non-Renewable Resources Positive - provides some access for recreationists Negative - increases uncontrolled access - pollution - impact on scenery Between Recreation Groups Interactions of non-mechanized recreation with snowmobiling : Positive - spotter for dog sled racing - construction of cross-country ski trails - avalanche rescue, general search and rescue - tourism Negative - noise, smoke - inconsiderate or unsafe operation, e.g. drinking, speeding - mechanized recreation damages habitat Question 2 - Main sources of conflict - uncontrolled access to the forest - impacts on scenery - pollution, degradation of habitat Question 3 - Successful mechanisms - communication: tourism people should be more aware of conservation needs. Don’t destroy the values upon which tourism depends. 10 - confine tourism development to transportation nodes - consult the people in the area to be affected. - education through newsletters - legal guidelines - internal policing (within recreation groups ) - openness, honesty - Integrated Resource Planning - both the product and the process. It provides a forum for communication. - Environmental Impact Assessment ( EIA ) - statutory restrictions , e.g. Forest Land Use Zones - spatial or temporal separation of forest users - smaller cutblocks with irregular shapes - 3 or A cut system of timber harvesting - better road design - reclamation e.g. well sites - multiple use (although it can’t be universally applied) - buffer zones along watercourses - visual buffers along linear corridors Question k - Unsuccessful mechanisms - Highway Vehicle Act treats snowmobiles the same as trikes - Integrated Resource Plans have no legal standing nor effective monitoring. There is a lack of distinction between technical abilities and values in the planning process . - advisory committees to government departments - restricted mandates - used for rubber stamping - lack of government integrity - manipulation Question 5 - Barriers to resolving conflict - difficulty in valuing non-market "values” - lack of recognition of the core values of another point of view - lack of willingness to compromise - lack of accountability by society - lack of legal standing for interest groups because they lack a "vested interest" (e.g. ERCB hearings , development appeal hearings ) - need for better criteria re legitimacy of standing - inadequate representation of the Public within organizations, by organizations within society, and by organizations at public hearings - government intransigence - interdepartmental conflicts - government structure: government departments are judge and jury within themselves. Government needs to operate more in the public arena. Question 6 - Future outlook - ecological integrity has a value. An area is worth going to because of its integrity . - indirect financial benefits - tourism and natural areas are "natural" partners. - Alberta Forest Service needs new thinkers. . . not just fibre. Department of Forest, Lands and Wildlife must recognize that timber management is not to be the sole use of forested lands, multiple use is not universally applicable. if there are no changes to the present system, conflicts will likely increase . must look at world trends, e.g. should agriculture expand into forested areas? recycling of more paper could reduce the need to cut forests. 12 AFTERNOON SESSION Transcript of Plenary Discussion JOAN SNYDER: Fellow strategists, I think we should get this session started this afternoon because we do have a fairly tight schedule and, after the morning session, I would say there might be more discussion than we had planned for. So I think we should get started now. The ground rules are that we’ve got three groups within this group. The first group will deal with Questions 1 and 2 and I’m going to ask that someone from each of the sectors -- logging, natural habitat, agriculture, non-renewable, and recreation report on Questions 1 and 2, what they came up with. You have ten minutes maximum per report for each of these sections and if you go over then I’ll bang this because we don’t have time to do everything. Now I have it set up currently for about an hour for Questions 1 and 2 and an hour and a half for the second set and an hour for the Looking to the Future set . We ’ 11 see how that goes . So with that, does anybody have any questions, comments, arguments? Qkay, let’s get started . KEN NELSQN: Did you want them to come up to the Chair? JQAN SNYDER: I don’t think it’s necessary unless -- if you want to come up here, it’s fine, but if not, then it’s not necessary. DAVID PQRTER: Joan, do you have a format for the discussion? Are we free to involve ourselves at any point? JQAN SNYDER: Yes. I would prefer that people give their reports, and when the reports are done then we can discuss it. So you should take a couple of notes if you have anything. Qtherwise we’re going to get lost and the reports won’t get done. So let’s do the reports and then we can come back and discuss it for a given period of time. Is that acceptable to everyone? Qkay, let’s get started then. The first report is from the logging sector. 13 BRIAN MACDONALD: I guess I was nominated. It’s going to be a bit difficult for us to follow your format because, being loggers, we didn’t follow the plan . [general laughter] Basically what we did is: we tried to summarize where we were coming out with forest land management, but I’ll try to keep it close to the first two questions . Firstly, the main group that we were dealing with this morning felt that we didn’t think that "loggers" really spoke for what we wanted to be called. We felt we were "forest managers." We got a little bit defensive on that term and said that we believe in what we are doing in the forests. We respect the resource. If we don’t manage well, we’ll face more interference which we don’t really want to have to handle. We’re further ahead with a lot of other users that are there because the diversity in some cases actually helps in access and managing the resource. So in a way we felt that we needed to be called forest managers as opposed to loggers. Having gone through that and feeling a little better about ourselves, I think that the major interaction and the problems that we do have are basically with those who want to designate areas for single use. While there are incidents that come up over time where you can get into some dog fights for a period of time, most of the issues with other users on the same land that we occupy do not cause a big problem. Most of them are resolved in some manner, usually a give-and-take kind of manner where people felt that they’ve been listened to and most of their concerns have been resolved. I think that, in the areas of protectionism or preservationist as opposed to multiple use, whenever you have someone wanting something for single use, that’s when it gets into conflict with the forest management side of it. I think, coming back a little bit to Question 1, we deal mostly through the Alberta Forest Service and through a system of input gathering that they go through with other areas of their department. Fish and Wildlife, Land Use, etc. But basically we deal directly with them. Now we have another form of input, which is drawing up A.O.P. plans, that we send out to as many of the 14 other users, the majority being trappers, that are on our area, telling them what our plans are for the next five years. Generally, the onus is on the company, on the forest management company, to contact the trappers, to use one example. It seems kind of a little bit of a problem in that we’re always there and we don’t move around and it would be easier, we think, knowing our processes, if the individuals who are on the area to check in with us as opposed to us trying to track down some. Most of them are good but you don’t get them all because of the fact that you don’t know where they are living all the time or who the other users are. Well, I guess just to sum up: the major point here is that we have pretty good systems of interacting with the other users. We don’t have a lot of conflict that goes unresolved except for those that involve single use requirements . I think that’s the direct interference with use that we feel we have of the resource. I guess I’ll end it there. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you. Natural Habitat is next. MARYHELEN POSEY: Thank you. Okay. Interactions of habitat interests with logging — we feel there is a great deal of elimination of habitat, especially for species that are not widely considered in other habitat maintenance or retention programs. We had examples; we ran out of space. We got tree frogs, pine martens, grizzlies, caribou, owls, and we could have kept going all day. In other cases, the logging will create or modify habitat for other species, the difficulty being that it is likely to be for species that we already had in abundance, that are doing fine without this. It does disturb wildlife while it is going on, although this is limited to a few species. Some species tolerate logging readily and some don’t. Again the species that don’t are also the ones that we ’ re having difficulty managing: wolverines, grizzly bears. It will alter the hydrologic regime, and produce siltation. That is something that can be managed. Obviously it deserves consideration . We split up logging and got silviculture, in as logging is only one aspect of the process, we’re extremely concerned for habitat in a situation where we are looking to monoculture and single-aged stands. We don’t regard that as forest any more. This becomes a tree farm. Maybe a slightly mixed tree farm. And 15 creation of a monoculture or trend toward monoculture again favors some species; normally those species are not ones that we are having difficulty preserving . Agriculture — the principal source of interaction with agriculture is grazing. The elimination of undergrowth is a potential difficulty. The competition for forage with wildlife species and streambank erosion and siltation again is something that can be managed but has not always been managed. There is another area that came as a terrible shock to some of us, that drainage programs are now being applied in forest areas in the peat bogs. Those of you who aren’t going to South Moresby to take your last look at them, go visit at a few peat bogs in Alberta. Non-renewable Resources — the concerns arose for spraying rights-of-way, for elimination of habitat, but the really critical difficulty is the provision of access, easy access into critical wildlife habitat. Incidentally, we’re concerned about the reclamation programs, because almost invariably you get a different habitat than you had before, and this is a systematic pattern. We talked about that under Questions 3 and 4. Recreation -- some disturbance of wildlife , erosion, trampling, pollution from any recreation even if all you do is tiptoe. On the other hand, a good deal of wildlife management can be done through recreational activities: hunting, fishing. That in turn brings you to stocking and transplanting with the possibility of introducing alien species. That one’s sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Question 2 -- the main sources of conflict. We had difficulty keeping Questions 1 and 2 separate. General reduction in quantity and quality of habitat. The very rapidly increasing access to remote habitats and in many cases regulations which have been agreed to are not being followed or have not been applied to old FMAs, and so they’re not being used. That’s it. We go on to Question 3 . It’s very difficult to separate the question of problems or the good/bad things from what it’s interacting on, it’s all melded into one. I think we’d 16 probably have been happier if we’d reorganized the whole question, but we didn’t havetime. DR. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you, Naryhelen. Okay, agriculture is next. HARVEY GARDNER: I got stuck in agriculture. I think they were desperate for people. We felt that our negative interaction, primarily with recreation users, is that grazing uses of the forest areas overlap with hunting seasons in a lot of places. There are a lot of potential problems there, particularly since that might be the season when hunters are moving in and we’re trying to move the cattle out. Big game tend to encroach in the winter from their summer habitat in the forest areas onto winter pastures and hay stacks in the White Zone, which everybody has heard more than enough about. The positive effects: some hunting of predators may be considered by some ranchers to be positive. Opening of roads by other users, particularly industrial users, some may consider positive, others consider totally negative. Spraying to control scrub — aspen, willow and other undergrowth — is thought to aid grass production and be a positive temporary one. Number 2: the main sources of conflict for forest users. We feel that there is a lot less supervision on recreationists than there is on either ranchers or industrial users. Irresponsible forest management can lead to water quality degradation, which can affect our operations . There is a terrific conflict on where to halt or whether to halt natural succession. Sometimes low brush encroaches and whether to do anything with that: let it run its course or what methods of control should be used, if any, like mechanical control, fire control, or chemical control. There area lot conflicts on those viewpoints. There is some conflict with stream use and watering livestock. Some other users say that the stream should be fenced to keep livestock away. Thank you. DR. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you, Harvey. We are moving right along here. Lots of time for discussion. The next group is Non-Renewable. 17 KEN CRANE: I will ask members of my group to jump in and fill in the blanks if I’ve left any. We went full circle on a lot of these issues. I think I’ve got most of them put down. In terms of interacting with other users of the forest land base, the impact of non-renewable groups is alienation of the land base. This comes on the forest land base in a number of ways. There are both long-term and short-term uses, and even within these uses you can have retained multiple use. For instance, on a pipeline right-of-way, you may still have access to it and wildlife can use the area, whereas, in the case, of say, a mine site, for safety reasons, that would become almost a single use while a mining operation is going on. This, of course, brings with it varying degrees of restriction of access to the public: hunters, recreationists . There is the improved access side, which could beneficial from some recreationists ’ viewpoint; to others it wouldn’t be beneficial. There is the fire control benefit perhaps. Of course, with the development you have potential for siltation. We talked about the use of common corridors as being a beneficial thing, reducing the amount of forest being cut, land being used, but it has its problems too as to whether some of the industries can use common corridors and is it the most economical route to go. Largely these interactions boil down to linear types of disturbances on the larger blocks, associated with mining or facility installation . The main sources of conflict — I think we felt that the first one largely was the fact that there is multiple land use and multiple leases. The government has given rights to a number of different users. You have a situation where one group will have control of the trees, someone will have sand/gravel rights, someone will have coal rights — make that the oil and gas rights. All these leases are issued at the same time, with the anticipation of the leaseholder that he has access to the resource that he leased. Conflict occurs when everybody wants to use the resource at the same time or one of the resources isn’t ready to be used. So all the rules and regulations aren’t in place to handle multiple use at the same time on the same block. Other sources of conflict are general mistrust of, say, industry users in the forest land base, a lack of understanding by the public and other users of one particular non-renewable activity. Also the increased access into an area that goes with non-renewable resource development brings with it increased use and heightens interaction and exposes areas that can lead to more conflict. I think that wraps it up . 18 JOAN SNYDER: Thank you. Recreation? GUY SWINNERTON: Basically, I think many of the points that we discussed have already been brought up. Certainly as a group we found some difficulty in maintaining a division between Questions 1 and 2. I think one of the points that perhaps could be made at the outset is that the environment, the forest environment, certainly provides unique opportunities for certain types of recreation. And because of the very nature of the representatives in the recreation group, some of the discussion or quite a considerable part of the discussion in fact, had the same tone and orientation 'that Maryhelen talked about in terms of habitat protection. So that I think with few exceptions we would endorse her observations vis-a-vis the conflict in terms of those uses which might dilute the integrity of certain habitats and environments. While we felt that there was certainly opportunity for the co-existence, even on an integrated basis, of a variety of the land use interests which we’ve been asked to address, at the same time I think we recognize that there were certain components within the forest environment which were of such significance that single use was really the only way of dealing with them. We recognize at the same time that, while we were speaking on behalf of recreation, even within that sub-group there is clearly considerable range of interest values and so on. Not least because we had a representative from the Snowmobile Association, some of the discussions related to and revolved around the whole question of mechanized recreation versus non-mechanized recreation . We found it very difficult to come up with sort of a balance sheet approach to determine what is the end product in terms of plus or minus. I think by and large we found — and access has already been discussed by a number of groups — that while on the one hand access provided opportunity and the means for getting to some of the areas, clearly uncontrolled access, including of hydro lines and so on could be a negative effect, particularly on those sensitive environments. We also felt that to some extent there was generally a negative relationship between recreation and non-renewable resources even though that might be point specific and might not necessarily affect a large area. I think the other points have generally been mentioned by the other groups. In terms of balance and loss types of relationships, there is opportunity for 19 co-existence. We felt that one of the problems in a number of instances was stereotyping of those other groups and therefore there is the need to go beyond that stereotyping to really understand the particular interests and sub-interests within those particular sub-groups. That applied not onlywithin recreation, but to forest interests, those within agriculture and so forth. One of the difficulties I’m sure we’ll bring up later on is the fact that while one can make position statements as to the co-existence of these various interests, quite often that is not then carried through in actual practice. And I think more than one person has already talked about the whole issue of trusting those other interest groups and the dialogue that might and is indeed necessary for dealing with many of these forestry problems. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you, Guy. That’s it for the reports from everybody. Let’s open it up for discussion. Does anybody have points they’d like to make based on what they heard from our speakers? Yes? MARYHELEN POSEY: I have a question for Brian. Did I correctly understand you to say that you see preservation of an area as a single use? BRIAN MACDONALD: Tell me what your definition is of. . . MARYHELEN POSEY: Let’s try Hidden Creek. PAUL WOODWARD: That’s fine. We can discuss that. I think it came out in our discussions — I was with Brian’s group — that preservation or single use interests are problems. MARYHELEN POSEY: Are you saying that. . . PAUL WOODARD: Wait! Come on now, you’ve got to be fair. But yet it’s not so much of a problem that it cannot be accounted for. I think that is what the forest management group is saying here. We agree that in some places things should be extremely heavily managed and other places it shouldn’t be. In some cases we should be doing more; in other cases we should be doing less in terms of silviculture, cutting, harvesting, recreation , or whatever . 20 Yes, we, as you, recognize certain valuable aspects to the landscape which should be maintained, and that might involve not harvesting. I guess what we’re saying, though, is that if in fact we enter the game with certain ground rules, and the ground rules are changed without us having an opportunity to participate fully or to be rewarded or remunerated for the change in the ground rules... yes, we’re going to belike you, we’re going to have our feelings hurt. What Brian was not saying is that we cannot live with single use. Now correct me, you other guys, if I’m wrong, but that’s the way I understood our position on that. MARYHELEN POSEY: Thank you very much, Paul, for an answer to a question I didn’t ask. I asked whether or not you saw preservation as being a single use. Or is it multiple use that doesn’t happen to include logging among the multi? BRIAN MACDONALD: Yes, I think that’s right. We’re looking at it from a point that we are — any use on a land base that we are in that says we can’t be involved in that area is single use to us. MARYHELEN POSEY: Yes, but for PR you might not put it that way. BRIAN MACDONALD: Not to say that preservation is single use, though. MARYHELEN POSEY: I didn’t understand you to say that you didn’t believe in preservation , I just -- you know, you really ought to avoid calling it single use because a lot of people will be saying, you know, they’re off their noggin . BRIAN MACDONALD: Let’s say exclusive. And specifically what Paul was trying to say -- we’re talking about an area where we have been given the right to go in and manage the forest part and then, if somebody wants to change the game, then someone has to account for that change. I don’t necessarily think it should be the person who started out with permission and legal rights to go in and manage the resource. PAUL WOODWARD: I think it’s also interesting to know that ample evidence exists for how we interpret the definitions that specific user agencies throw up in front of us. You know what I mean when I talk about preservation and 21 when I talk about single use. I think we all know. Let’s not get hung up in semantics, because there’s ample evidence that — you know there’s a number of people in here who are as much wilderness users — they cut trees for a living -- as you are . NARYHELEN POSEY: I’m not saying that you’re not preserving . I was talking about your use of a term that is very dangerously misleading. PAUL WOODWARD: No, no. It was being misinterpreted very dangerously. Not the way we were using it. I rest my case. JACK WRIGHT: Could I ask the habitat group what they mean when they say that silviculture is monoculture? What do you mean by monoculture? NARYHELEN POSEY: You pick out a species that you want more of and try to eliminate all the other species that get in your way when you come back to log the area the next time. JACK WRIGHT : Does that happen? NARYHELEN POSEY: It’s what the aim is, I think. How thoroughly it’s being successful, I know not. JACK WRIGHT : Or is it a stereotype? Because the forests on the East Slopes resulted from fire and were probably more of a monoculture than any created by silviculture. And I just wonder what you mean by monoculture . We don ’ t plant all one species of one genetic strain. We don’t eliminate any species, so we don’t have a monoculture . NARYHELEN POSEY: You don’t have one or you don’t want one? JACK WRIGHT: We neither want one nor do we have one. DARYL D’ANICO: You couldn’t even make one anyway, because in the mixed wood stand you’re going to get so much aspen and black poplar and birch coming back naturally. If it’s spruce and pine that is on that block as well as your aspen, you’re going to get some natural pine coming in even if you plant 22 spruce to try to enhance. And if it had an understory of fir, you can do everything in your power to try to get rid of the fir and it’s still going to be there. So in the silviculture process you almost get a little bit of everything coming back. JACK WRIGHT: You don’t want to necessarily create all one species. You want a predominant species to choose from. KEN NELSON: Jack, what about the age-class issue? We didn’t talk about that in our group. But that’s also a sore point, the attempt to have a particular cut block that basically is of one age class. Is that a stereotype also? JACK WRIGHT: It’s true. But I can also point out that in the last 100 years on Champion’s Forest Management Area there were six fire years. So there were six age classes under 100 years of age on 3,000 square miles. We’ve got a lot more variety of age class after timber harvesting than we ever got naturally. PAUL WOODWARD: One of the problems here is that the text book says one thing about monocultures and even-age management of pure stands, but they never really talk about the variation that is allowed to occur to maintain a monoculture of even-age stands — plus or minus 20 percent minimum depending on the definition used. And that ’ s what you ’ re saying. The other thing that you’re saying and reading is the fact that these are goals : sustained yield, multiple use, okay. Almost all of them are not really possible. And those of you who are in agriculture, or even trying to manage your own personal life, know that budgets are not continuing and stable. So we can talk about monocultures, but we have a pocketbook like yours and there’s only so much money in there. We can’t afford a monoculture. We can’t really afford an even- age stand. So we’ve done what you do. We’ve learned to live with age classes that go from 60 to 120 years and we try to find ways of merchandising those resources in the best interest of. . . JACK WRIGHT: When we talk about the age on a cut block per se, fire creates about a three-year spread in age. All regeneration is every three years. After harvesting the range, it maximizes at about eight years after and takes about 11 years. So you have 11 years to fully stock a stand after harvesting compared to, say, three years after a fire. 23 JACK WOODERS: Yes, but how are you going to handle that when the time comes to log that particular cut block? You’re going to cut them all again and then what you’re going to do is you’re going to be taking immature trees that are more mature than the main part of the stand. JACK WRIGHT: No, not if you’re looking at eight years, because in a calculated rotation you usually take in a regeneration period. So what we’re doing is we’re taking plus or minus four or five years from taking the midpoint. So when you’re looking at 80, 90 or 100 years, three or four years doesn’t mean you have immature trees, or over-mature trees. PAUL WOODARD: We really don’t manage based on years now. We manage based on product sizes, so sometimes you’d like to say 80 years, 20 years, but sometimes it’s a lot longer. You’d like to think you can grow a cow in six or eight months but sometimes it takes longer depending on whatever. JACK WRIGHT: It’s the same as taking the natural forest. You don’t take the natural forest when the tree reaches 80 years or 100 years. You take it from those areas that are predominantly over-mature . JOAN SNYDER: Harvey, have we lost the thought you had? HARVEY GARDNER: I still have it. I was going to take issue with two points. First, I believe that one of the forest companies wanted to at least experiment with a certain type of herbicide use to retard succession in broad- leaf plants. This may not result in a monoculture , but it’s an attempt in that direction. Another thing I would take exception to is your statement that there is monoculture naturally occurring in the Eastern Slopes. It may be true in the area you are familiar with, but where I live it is not true. Our last fire was in 1910 and we have a varied community now: open grassland, we have aspen stands, we have pine stands, we have spruce stands, we even have old stands of spruce that by far predate the 1910 fire. So we have small clumps of land that can be harvested of timber -- too small to be worth bothering about. So you don’t get necessarily — I’m sure in the textbook, as Paul says, you get a fire and it all comes up in fireweed nnd then you get jack pine next or something. This is not my experience in our particular climate . 24 JACK WRIGHT: Well, it’s an experience — except you may have had successive fires that changed the structure. If you get one fire every 60, 70, or 80 years, you’ll get a monoculture more or less. If you get fires in short succession and if you had a 1910 fire following the 1889 burn which covered probably 70 percent of the East Slopes, definitely you would get a variety of species . HARVEY GARDNER: Prairie was created, I understand, by a succession of fires and you still did not get a monoculture. JACK WRIGHT: Right, but now we keep fires out. We try to. BRIAN MACDONALD: I think one thing we’ve got to understand here is that we’re talking about what the main source of conflict is. I think we’ve really brought one out here and one is, you know, semantics -- what one means when one uses words. The other one is the business of one person looking on monoculture being one thing and single-aged stands being another. People, as far as I’m concerned, don’t really understand what forest management is or what it’s trying to do. Just a minute. You made a comment about someone wanting to do monoculture by using some herbicide, and that is not what the intent of using herbicide is. That’s okay, because the impression you have is that. This is the biggest source of conflict between groups. You’re not going to deal with over here, you’ve got to go out. . . HARVEY GARDNER: We’re using words that are common to the English language, but they are not common between industries. Me, I use a herbicide because I want straight wheat; I don’t want any variety. So I assume that’s the same in your business. But that’s not true. But we got to get down and argue about the damn thing or I don’t think we’ll ever understand. JOAN SNYDER: If I may ask just this one question? If the purpose of forest spraying is not to release certain conifers so that they can grow. . . BRIAN MACDONALD : No, that ’ s different . That ’ s monoculture . 25 JOAN SNYDER: But if you’ve only planted one species of conifer and that’s what you want to grow, isn’t that somewhat the same idea? JACK WRIGHT: It may not be. There isn’t meant to be just one species of conifer. There could be three or four species. The whole problem is. . . JOAN SNYDER: You usually plant only one or two species. BRIAN MACDONALD: Right, but generally there is only one or two species of conifer in Alberta. JOAN SNYDER: We only have three species of conifer. SPEAKER: Not really. Anyway. That’s neither here nor there. I just wanted to clarify that there really is a difference between the two, because that wasn’t clear to me . JACK WRIGHT : And the purpose of the herbicide spray is not to make monoculture. What we’re looking at now is probably ten percent in natural stands of hardwood. Following harvest, that can become 50 to 70 percent. After the next generation, it’ll be 100 percent. So that will be creating a monoculture. And what we’re trying to do is maintain a conifer base for a wood supply. But there definitely is going to be hardwood in there. It’s not like where you spray in agriculture. You can’t just spray once and assume that you completed it. We just need to spray until we release those conifers. We don’t need to maintain it as a monoculture. JOAN SNYDER: Just in the very early stages. JACK WRIGHT: Yes. Just to avoid losing the investment. RICK WATSON: Maybe let’s turn the question around a bit. I guess I’d like to know from the natural habitat people what you would like to see from the point of view of how a forest industry should be operating. What should we be regenerating? MARYHELEN POSEY: Is that Question 6 already? 26 JOAN SNYDER: If I may. Right now we ’ re dealing with conflict. So if we can stay with identifying the conflicts, which I think we’re doing very well, then I think we can move on and try to resolve some of them in the next few minutes if that’s okay. Because if we can survive this, we are. . . RICK WATSON: I guess my only point that I wanted to bring out was that while you know what you don’t want, do you indeed have a good idea of what you do want? JOAN SNYDER: Jack, you had a question. JACK WOODERS: I’ve got several. Brian, I take exception to your term for the pulp companies as forest managers. A lot of people consider they should be (inaudible), but that’s a matter of personal freedom. BRIAN MACDONALD: I was talking about this group in here. We wanted to be called forest managers . JACK WOODERS: Oh, you want to be called that. I beg your pardon. But with the large pulp companies, I as a trapper find that their large clear-cut blocks are detrimental to the trappers. The larger the blocks, I think, the more detrimental to the forests. The type of rotation that is used by the FMA holder should be at least a four cycle, rather than a two cycle. Perhaps there are changes, I don’t know. These are some of the elements that are causing considerable trouble for a trapper and other people who use the forest area. So this is a conflict and we could be very happy to see some means of resolving these issues. BRIAN MACDONALD: I guess I can’t argue with your first statement. I really don’t know that much about trapping, so if you told me that large clear cuts cause trappers problems, then I’d agree with you. The other issues are up for debate. I think I could argue myself into saying that I don’t know if that’s exactly right, for instance, to say that large clear cuts bother other users of the forest. I think I could buy what you’re saying for trappers in terms of large clear cuts . 27 DARYL D’AMICO: Jack, I think what happens between the trapping industry and the logging company is that the logging company usually has a very large tract of land and inside of it are a whole pile of little tiny areas that are traplines. And what happens is that those traplines end up being so small that when a large company comes in to harvest the over-mature timber in that area, that trapper can have his entire area just about all taken out within a five- year period and he’s not left with anything. What also happens is that over top of a large company that has a Forest Management Agreement area, they have a 20-year agreement with the Province and that land is given to that company for the primary purpose of timber production and he’s charged with doing a certain number of things. One of them is to remove the over-mature timber. That’s a provincial policy. But that’s in direct conflict with what the trapper wants to see. We end up making a plan that is submitted to the province and it is approved. Then we’re stuck with it. But you guys suffer the consequences of it. Do you understand what I mean? JACK WOODERS: Inadequate planning in the first place. Trappers who have been there so long over so many years, people don’t realize they’re there any more. That’s what is happening. DARYL D’AMICO: Yes, and in some cases as well, a lot of the trappers aren’t full-time trappers, they’re only part-time trappers . JACK WOODERS: Ah, but the large FMAs have made them part-time trappers, because of the action of what they’ve done. TOM VARTY: I think some of these traplines are such a small area that they can’t possibly beviable. DARYL D’AMICO: They’re not viable anyway. JACK WOODERS: I’ve got 120 square miles on my line. DARYL D’AMICO: But you’re an exception. TOM VARTY: We see lots of lines that are too small to be — if they log even a very miniscule portion, it wipes out most of the habitat on a small line. 28 We submit that the party who entered that trapline or whatever the mechanism was that allocated that land and our logging — something’s haywire here. JACK WOODERS: If the logging, the clearcut areas were from 20 to A0 to 50 acres, rotated over a four or five cycle, the disturbance would be tremendously reduced. It would be a continuing situation where you will say you’re not going to get it out fast enough or economically enough in your small areas, but over time you have assuredly a continuous basis for pulp production or saw log production. This way you’re spoiling the trap lines and you’re turning the whole economy into a pulp economy from a saw log economy. That strikes me — that’s what I see happening. PAUL WOODWARD: Jack, wouldn ’ t you agree , though, that we ’ re almost a product of the ground rules that are imposed on us? We’re taking the bad rap for ruining your livelihood . JACK WOODERS: There must be some consideration, some flexibility here. PAUL WOODARD: We would argue that you and I could be in the same camp, and are in fact in the same camp, psychologically and in spirit. Unfortunately, the rules say that we have to hurt you. So in fact maybe the best solution here would be for us to get together and go to the government and say, "Look, we think we can live together if you will allow us the ability to make the right decisions for both of us." JACK WOODERS: I think that’s a first-rate idea. PAUL WOODARD: We have to be careful, though, because, you see, we’re getting out of Questions 1 and 2 here. JOAN SNYDER: Before we go any further with this, let’s not try to solve all our problems yet because we have all these other things to do first. Such as are there any other conflicts that we want to identify right here at this time? HARVEY GARDNER: Confl icts with government . 29 PAUL WOODARD: I think there’s a major conflict and that is that we run the risk of saying there are the "haves" and the "have nots." The haves feel kind of comfortable and the have nots feel kind of shafted . And it would appear that the haves are trying very hard to make the have nots comfortable, but every time we turn around the haves are facing the have nots who have this litany of things that are being screwed up by the haves. Now, Maryhelen, when you put your list on the board, I can’t believe we can even sustain life in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains based on what we do to the recreation, the watersheds, to the wildlife species. I mean, you even have deer on there. Let’s try to stay away from the overreaction , because this is a major conflict. We’re not talking about fact and fiction. We’re not talking about facts here or assumptions even; oftentimes we’re talking about fiction. Now I’m not saying some of the examples you gave are not true. The bull trout population in Hidden Creek is an issue which needs to be addressed. It’s not an issue that forestry raised; it’s an issue that the ground rules raised. There’s some recreational opportunities that are being lost. But let’s be specific here in our conflict resolution to define those conflicts in those times and spaces that perhaps can be resolved. Okay, conflicts in time and space . Specific . MARYHELEN POSEY: That’s Questions 3, 4, and 5. We were still trying to be very general with Questions 1 and 2. JOAN SNYDER: Anything else besides semantic problems, communication and stereotyping, and government? If not, let’s move on to the second group. I think maybe one thing we can do is listen to the reports of this second section on resolving differences and then maybe take a short break, and come back and have a discussion if we can manage to get ourselves back in here and not get discussing in the hall. But I’m sure everybody will be ready to get some coffee or something at that point. Okay, let’s move on into the resolving differences — Questions 3, 4, and 5 — and we’ll go back to Brian and forest management logging . BRIAN MACDONALD: Again, I think that we had a hard time separating those three questions, so some of this may be a little bit irrelevant. But I think that some of the major points that were put under here — and some of them we were talking about during the previous discussion — that an allocation 30 problem has been brought about. . . I don’t blame the current government, the previous government, or whatever. It was the best-known facts of the day and maybe some of the not-known facts of the day as to what we were getting ourselves into. But that allocation problem has got to be addressed in some form or another, in some kind of policy, in order to make it easier for people to understand what they’re getting themselves into. It is fine for Jack and I to say "Well, let’s get together and see if we can resolve it," but if that’s continually how we have to do business, we’re never really going to know what the actual game is and to be able to plan ourselves long term. It is very difficult to work on daily operations. You can do it, but not if you’re trying to plan your line 20 years from now. It is very difficult to work on a day-to-day kind of relationship. So that needs to be addressed. I think that some of the other things go along with what Paul mentioned in terms of the haves and have nets. I must admit, Paul, that I got a bit lost towards the end of your analogy. I understood what you were trying to say, I think. That is, probably it is who pays for everything that gets demanded of. Okay, you want to compromise on this hand and this group wants a compromise on another and this one doesn’t want you in there at all -- I think we talked a little about that one. Someone mentioned the Hidden Creek area. Once you understand what you want, who is going to pay for that? Or is somebody going to lose? Or are we all going to throw it in the pot and pay for what we’ve decided we want to do with this land. . . we’re all going to pay for it. Or do you want it, but you don’t want to pay for it? I think that needs to be decided . I think the other thing is that, in terms of our group, our forest management group, I don’t think people really — people do stereotype us as loggers or poor planners or monoculturalists or whatever. I guess I’m not saying that some instances couldn’t be pointed at that could perhaps shed us in that light, but I really don’t think a lot of people know what forest management is. Most foresters feel that they have a better overview as a land manager than probably any other training that is going on, whether it be biology or wildlife management or whatever it is. I guess we know a little bit about everything and are not expert in any, so we feel that, while we many not have the right answers in a specific area, we probably have the best overview in terms of managing what can be done in all avenues of land management. And so 31 that’s probably why we get fairly defensive when people question or challenge what we’re doing in this area, because most of the time we get challenged by specialists or special interest groups as opposed to people who, perhaps, we feel have the same degree of overview that we do. One of the things we talked about a lot in our group is that we create ... on the concept of integrated management planning. We don’t like the process, we don’t like the way it’s being implemented, and some of the results are not adhered to, but the concept is an excellent one. If a conservation strategy was broad and general such that the integrated resource planning would fall out of that and from that then forest management planning would be able to fit under that umbrella, then that would be great. I guess we could agree with the principle of conservation strategy, agree with integrated management planning. However, we think that good forest management can fit within that framework and shouldn’t be compromised . I think one of the other things that we talked to, in terms of conflicts, is that we have a hard time understanding changing the rules, I guess, once the money’s in and the game has started. I think one of the people. Jack, may have made the point. That’s not to say that the status quo goes on forever, but it can’t be kind of like on a jerk string. The change has to be over time and understanding and being able to plan for it, whether it be planned for in operating terms or economic terms or species terms. I guess the other thing is that -- not using any examples so that I don’t get my words mixed up — the major conflicts that we do have are those that isolate us from using the land base that we had originally been given permission to use. I’ll end it there. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you. MARYHELEN POSEY: I’ll preface this by saying I’m expecting a large number of questions from the logging group -- forest management group. Because we started looking for successful mechanisms, the ones that we actually knew of in our group are almost all from somewhere else in the world. In some cases, in the United States, we have private ownership of the land, which is the forest land base. You find excellent results because it’s easy to tell who 32 the owner is, and he’s responsible for himself. It’s not very broad, massive government, people, public. That’s probably not a very good method for acquiring that attitude of stewardship of the whole resource, but was one that is available and has worked. Someone mentioned that in terms of the agriculture conflicts — we have the case of fencing off of streams and so forth — so this is what I referred to as it could be managed. Our difficulties are coming in finding good examples here. That may be because I’m from the southern part of the province at least. We do understand that Champion has a program that they’ve been trying to put into place, which sounded like an integrated forest management, and has had actual difficulty with getting government support and backing. Now this is ridiculous. In some cases we are reluctant to believe that we are receiving realistic stumpage fees. Certainly that’s true in the south of the province . And we’re seeing things like inadequate guidelines in the sense that allocations and regulations have been made without respect concerning habitat or protecting it in any way. Oh yes, selective cutting, which we would all just much prefer to see rather than cutblocks . With Question 5, we’re looking at a necessity of educating forest management personnel in terms of attitudes towards multiple use. I’m not sure just exactly where the largest chunk of that education is going to have to be done. I would start with the forest warden system, Alberta Forest Services, because there’s very frequently, in the way they see, a notion that multiple use means we’ll log it and then you can use it, and if your particular use doesn’t really fit that, tough! But I suspect as this goes on, it would also extend to some of the people managing forest on-site or the companies. That is the single most important thing . We like the look of integrated resource plans , but they aren ’ t working . The agreements that are hammered out with great effort suffer some sort of strange change on their way through the Cabinet and reappear in radically altered form. That makes it difficult for people to have any trust in the process, and it also means that everybody feels the rules were changed in the middle. In that connection, we had an argument going about whether zoning reduces flexibility or increases it. We had it written down as it reduces it first and then the problem showed up. We’re also concerned that Alberta Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife staff are simply not out thore where the 33 resource is. They are largely in offices and they are all suffering budget and staff cuts which will make it even more difficult for them to be out there where the resource is. So the two biggest things are education and politics. Somehow we ’ ve got to get either the government or politics out of this. One or the other. KEN NELSON: Maryhelen, the answer is obviously to privatize the whole thing. MARYHELEN POSEY: Well, I had it for structured anarchy. (general laughter) JOAN SNYDER: Isn’t that what we already have? MARYHELEN POSEY: It’s the wrong structure. JOAN SNYDER: Harvey, I guess you’re next. HARVEY GARDNER: What mechanisms have been successful in avoiding or resolving conflicts? Examples: dialogue and communication, I think, are successful in avoiding conflicts or resolving them. I ’ d like to avoid the word "education , " which came up often in our group as it implies a one-way exchange. Seek positive solutions, in other words, like Paul did. Capitalize on a positive suggestion and then see if we can get on with it. The integrated resource plan process looks like a good process with plenty of public input and continued monitoring by the same public after the plan is in place. Continued contact amongst the people who set the plan up, excluding the people who did the altering that you mentioned. The Use Respect program is not in the forest area. That friendly approach is working to a certain degree in the White Zone. Rural Crime Watch also works in the White Zone. Fish and Wildlife’s phone number for reporting game infractions is a good mechanism. Other mechanisms have been unsuccessful in avoiding or resolving conflicts -- heavy handedness does not avoid conflicts . Regulations don’t help all that much, the imposition of rules at the top without grassroots input. Public hearings are a mixed bag depending on the people on the panpl depending on 34 the way it’s done, depending on what the object of the public hearing is. The main barrier to resolving conflicts is bureaucratic narrow-mindedness , which relates to the forest manager’s comments on ground rules. Lack of hands-on experience with day-to-day problems of people in the field, extreme viewpoints and unrealistic positions and expectations, inaccessible information, particularly that which might modify a position. That takes care of Question 5. JOAN SNYDER: Non-renewable. KEN CRANE: We had a tough time separating Questions 4 and 5, so let’s have those two up together. Some of our resolving differences do repeat what other people have said. Starting off, we felt that public awareness and dissemination of adequate and trustworthy information is key. All these have plus and minuses if they ’ re done wrong , so that ’ s the problem with throwing them in a category. Government review process has merit, in terms of a team of experts there that check and review proposals to ensure that conflicts are taken care of and addressed in development plans, [inaudible] a government review process that implemented and started public awareness programs and making that a requirement in terms of project approvals. Conflicts also in individual discussions with either specific public interest groups or individuals, landowners. There ’ s also negotiation and compensation aspects, negotiation being either relocating someone to another area where they can enjoy the same pursuits they had before — not exactly the same — and compensation, money compensation . Adjudication boards certainly have their role, although we felt that it’s a route that was the least preferred to go. Some surprises can come out of that route and usually by the time you go to the adjudication board you’re already pretty tense. But they do have a role and its there to safeguard both parties. Provincial policies have been helpful in a lot of cases by setting a policy which puts everybody under the same umbrella. They know what the rules of the game are and everybody has to play that way . One more important reason differences are being resolved is the realization that there’s changes in philosophy in corporations . Corporations are made of people, and eventually corporations will reflect societal values. There may be a time lag behind where society is or where the media are pushing things, 35 but people have values in this room today and if they’re in managerial positions in companies, that starts being reflected within the corporations and how they operate. So those are the resolving differences aspects we saw. In terms of unsuccessful, we had difficulty resolving problems when the rules are unclear. Both parties have perceived rights; some of those perceptions are in their own minds as opposed to on paper or whatever. Some options are just not negotiable or acceptable. I think the example we brought up was the damming of the Slave River. There were two views on that one and there was no middle of the road. That applies to other projects as well . [There may be] lack of sensitivity on the part of the developer or proponent in appreciating the other users’ interests and appreciation of forest land base. We could see where regulations have been barriers to resolving conflicts at times. This basically comes with the aspect of multi leasing, all on the same tract of land and what happens when they all come at the same time. JOAN SNYDER: Recreation. Guy. GUY SWINNERTON: In terms of some of the mechanisms that have been successful in avoiding or at least resolving conflicts for certain recreation interests, we felt that there is a need to identify in a spatial sense certain areas for certain uses. As a for instance, the forest land use zones met some of the particular needs of the recreation/habitat interest. But we recognize that, certainly over the substantive part of the forest environment, some form of integrated resource management, in principle at least, seemed to be the most effective way of dealing with it. Reference has already been made to the U.S. example in that regard. Some of the problems we saw in regards to integrated resource management from a recreation interest perspective were problems of those diverse interests broadly defined as "recreation" having actual standing within that process and being recognized as a particular interest group. In a number of instances, we’ve had situations in the province where interveners from recreation/heritage interests have tried to intervene and basically haven’t had a legal standing. We felt that is clearly, from our perspective, one of the problems. I think of the other problems we see with integrated resource management, and the outcome from it is the subsequent monitoring and accountability of the 36 various vested stakeholders in that overall process. And also some skepticism — if not already there certainly growing, but I suspect they’re already there -- in terms of how do we deal with the important difference between the factual aspects of planning and the value aspect of planning. How do we build that into a process and sort of provide an equitable means of dialogue and decision-making between the various interests? Clearly some of the stakeholders have the ability to put forward arguments in a very quantifiable, objective way. In other instances, it’s much more difficult. And while I think there is a general move to bring all interests to a means of a common mechanism for demonstrating value, in some instances that can’t be done. And clearly there is the likelihood and the tendency for those non-market values to be diluted and not have a fair presence in this decision-making process. I think any other concern that was expressed is that we can go through an integrated resource management process or some sort of process of this type and then the political override takes place. Therefore, this really brings into question the whole legitimacy or certainly the creditability of that particular process in relation to a specific area. I think we saw that in looking at mechanisms which have been successful, we have to look at not only the product which comes out of that planning process but also the process itself. In some instances, even though the product is not one which is acceptable to all parties, there has been some benefit gained through the actual process of dialogue. I think this is what we’ve seen today, as a for instance, is that need for two-way interaction and, as Harvey said, not education, because that tends to demonstrate a one-way flow. In many instances, the problems are set by the intransigence of government departments rather than the actual persons involved. I know, having spoken to Jack in the past, that there are certain positions he has and I have in terms of recreation interest, and we could quite well get on together, but there are certain constraints put on him by government policy. In many instances, if he took the stance that he himself would want to take, he would be perhaps moving out of his own territory and into one where he might be labeled "conservationist" in an amenity conservation sense. So there are some real problems there in terms of government intransigence. There are also the problems of government programs being counterproductive one with each other. We need some overall consistency in government policy on specific areas and specific issues, so that you haven’t got a policy development implemented 37 through funding by one government department being counterproductive in relation to another one. One other point that needs to be made is the difficulty that the public at large see with the varying nature and structure of government departments, where there seems to be judge and jury in the same government department, and whether or not what we really need is some restructuring of government so that we have a mechanism by which a government department can carry out its mandate and, if necessary, the checks have to come from outside that department. We recognize that there’s a two-way debate here as to whether or not counterbalances should be built within a department or whether it needs to come from outside. JOAN SNYDER: Before we break, if I can speak from the Chairperson ’ s perspective, one of the things that I have been hearing here has to do with — well, we talked about communication and the same words meaning something different to different people. I think it is a little bit more than that. I see that there are different perspectives here and I will use myself as an example. Brian was talking about forest management as being integrated forest management and foresters should do this because they know most about it. At the same time, I am an ecologist and so, instead of saying integrated resource management, I say integrated ecosystem management , which is a very subtle difference in the way of looking at things but it does cause some of the conflicts that we are having to deal with: subtle differences in the way that we see the resource or ecosystem or whatever it is. I think we should be thinking of ways to deal with that because that, I think, is where the main conflict comes from. Go ahead. GUY SWINNERTON: If I may pick up on that point, too. I think Paul made the point that we don’t want to get into semantics, but I think there are certain difficulties here. The way we use the term "conservation”: if we use the word "conservation," to most agencies it is basically a certain form of management of the environment in which they are working. When a forester talks about conservation, he is talking about sustained yield and ramifications of that. When an agriculturalist talks about conservation, he is talking about methods of maintaining or improving tillage techniques and so forth. Quite often, when we are talking about conservation in terms of 38 amenity resources, we have to introduce quite different forms of management which are conservation in a different perspective. I think that these problems go beyond simple semantics in many instances. I think it is picking up the point that you’re talking about. JOAN SNYDER: Okay, let’s take a ten-minute break and then we’ll come back and maybe we can resolve all of these conflicts. (coffee-break ) PAUL WOODARD: Joan, did I miss on Question 5 these three points that we identified? Maybe they didn’t come up? One of them is that one of the main barriers to successfully resolving conflicts might be the press coverage that we get, which tends to be very skewed towards all the problems and sensationalism as opposed to identifying the kinds of things that we’ve agreed on and have been able to accomplish together. I think that tends to separate us more than to bring us together. And then I think another thing is that it appears that the voice of a minority tends to rule in deference to, perhaps, the considered opinion of the majority. These kinds of things contribute to our conflict . JOAN SNYDER: Excepting an election. Okay, it’s an interesting point. I guess we’re back in order again. Now is the time to resolve things. Certainly that is one important aspect, I think. Anything else? What other kinds of resolutions can we find? BRIAN FREE: One impression I had from the different groups was that you like the idea or the concept of integrated resource plannning and integrated resource management, and many of you liked the process we’ve got of consulting the different groups and working out some sort of plan. But you’re finding that either the plans are getting changed by senior levels of government or political decisions come in, or something is wrong when it comes to trying to implement these plans. I’m wondering where we should go with this integrated resource planning process? Is it doomed to failure or should we keep trying? What can we do to improve? 39 MARYHELEN POSEY: I think maybe one thing we’re going to have to do ultimately is stop pretending that it is working publicly, or perhaps convince the media to take note when we say it isn’t. As it stands right now, the integrated resource planning and management program actually is more of a barrier to doing things right than it is a help, because you come along and you say, "Hey, this was supposed to be critical wildlife habitat; why are you putting an oil well on it?" and the government looks at you and says, "Look, we had an integrated management planning process in place; we zoned it multiple use." It may not have been what the committee recommended, but as long as the minister can say, "Look, we went through that process... voice of the people, compromise on every side." In fact, you’re not getting anywhere. But I think a lot of the difficulty is that we also have not been very vocal about the fact that the process is networking. We’re vocal about specific examples of its failure, for example, the wildlife habitat that is being invaded by drilling operations. We do not complain about the process or, if we do, it doesn’t get reported. DAVID PORTER: Naryhelen, what alternative process would you propose, then? You seem to be very negative about the IRP, and I am just curious. MARYHELEN POSEY: The IRP process, as far as getting the draft plan to the government, is great. It’s what that government does to it afterward. I’ve been on two where every single person on the committee -- we had forestry representatives , we had oil and gas representatives , we had everybody and it took a lot of time and effort but we got agreed zoning planned and it was recommended. The whole committee recommended it. And it came up and either at the assistant deputy minister or deputy minister level or in Cabinet, a lot of those zones changed. So what was finally proclaimed as the Integrated Resource Management Plan did not bear much resemblance in a number of areas to the plan that had been proposed to the government. And that is the big problem with the process. Well, first of all, you’re also not supposed to talk about what you’ve referred to so that the public at large do not recognize that things have changed when it comes back. And the other thing is that since all of that is done behind closed doors, you’re never sure whether it is in fact the result of some senior specialist agencies looking at it or of a purely political decision made by whom or why. I don’t know how you can guarantee that that won’t change when you live in a province where we really only need 40 one law and it would say: the Lieutenant Governor by Order in Council may. . . blank. So that you can say, it has to have such and such a kind of course and you know darn good and well that if Cabinet thinks it would be very useful to turn it down, you know they will turn it down. But it would be nice if the process were made more open. And if we can’t get the government to think it should be made more open, then maybe those of us who are sitting on some of these committees should refuse to maintain that mild confidentiality that exists from the time the plan is referred to government and the time it comes out. But I think it’s also going to be very hard to get media attention because that’s a complex and abstruse kind of problem, whereas if I say, "Look, now they want to put the gas well in my prime wildlife zone", that’s something the press would understand. But it means that you’re still nit-picking. You’re still fighting the brush fires. You’re not getting across the fact that the whole process is falling apart in key points. JOAN SNYDER: Maybe the entire process should be public. All the meetings should be public so that anyone can come and watch them. Then it’s obviously available to . . MARYHELEN POSEY: Those committees were awkward because you’d only have one representative of the conservation groups, for instance, and we don’t always agree with each other too well. But, yes, if they opened it up wide and everybody could participate who was interested, it would probably be much more difficult . BRIAN FREE: They do have public meetings in the areas. MARYHELEN POSEY: Those are open house things. They’re not where you actually hammer out the agreement . BRIAN FREE: But they do take some of the input they get from those meetings and try to incorporate them into revised drafts. HARVEY GARDNER: Yes, any errors are pointed out and taken back. MARYHELEN POSEY: That has only happened with Kananaskis because the entire thing is on Crown land. 41 HARVEY GARDNER: It has also happened in Cooking Lake. BRIAN FREE: Are there are some Instances where this planning process has worked? IVIARYHELEN POSEY: Cold Lake. I understand at Cold Lake the integrated management plan is working great . BRIAN FREE: So it might just be in certain instances where it’s not working. MARYHELEN POSEY: One out of five. You’ve got a terrific batting average. BRIAN FREE: If it works in one, then maybe the process doesn’t have to be thrown out . NARYHELEN POSEY: Oh, no. I think the process can be improved or made more open. I think that’s probably a long way towards solving it and making it work because you’re never going to get politics out of it completely. BRIAN MACDONALD: You’re never going to get everybody happy with the integrated planning. MARYHELEN POSEY: No, but the more people you ’ ve got working on it, the more chance eveyrbody’s got for making their points and seeing if they’re considered somehow. BRIAN MACDONALD: Only if they come to the table willing to move off where they’re coming from. MARYHELEN: I’m not talking about negotiations, Brian. I’m talking about hearings. The way it is operating right now is a small committee with a representative for each of various interest groups. We sit down and actually negotiate out the bits of the map. But, in order to open it up, it might be useful to refer it instead to a public hearing kind of process like the ECA hearings, on a smaller scale. So that you’re not actually expecting everyone there to come in and negotiate for you. You are to fit those management committees (inaudible) 40 meetings in different parts of the province. Your 42 panel then does the zoning afterwards. But either we’re going to have to go to something like that -- which is much bigger — where the individuals themselves are not negotiating or we’re going to have to get what happens in these negotiating meetings much more thoroughly aired in public. JOAN SNYDER: Ken? KEN CRANE: One thing I’ve noticed in integrated resource planning is that it really doesn’t do what it purports to do and that is integrate total resource development. It pays scant attention to subsurface resources. It’s largely right out of Forestry, Lands and Wildlife and that’s where the focus is. A lot more than that runs this province. I don’t have any trouble with a drill site on a critical wildlife zone, because I don’t really know that drill sites are damaging to the wildlife. A lot of activities can be beneficial or be made to be beneficial for specific purposes. Integrated resource planning dealsmainly with the surface resources. It seems to be a geographer’s dream to do this planning. It’s dealing with the future and, the best of luck. One of the provincial goals is to increase tourism in this province. Yet we’ve got to realize that a tourist by definition is someone who travels a hundred miles away from home and stays overnight. Naybe a lot of our tourists here in Alberta are actually working people. And the users of the forest land base in an integrated resource planning area are coming from the resource industries in the area and they become tourists on the weekends. So I think more balance is needed in the system. It certainly needs some sort of injection of economics and marketplace and what that does for the various users in the area. JOAN SNYDER: Kim. KIM SANDERSON: I don’t know if it was somebody in the water resources area, but I was speaking with someone a while back who indicated that the integrated resource plans, after they had been approved by Cabinet, there’s going to be a mechanism put into place whereby they would be watched for a year after they were passed and then there could be changes that would go back — revisions. If what had been recommended in that plan and was implementrd wasn’t working or the people weren’t happy with it, there would be the opportunity for further changes. Now has anybody else heard that? 43 NARYHELEN POSEY: I’ve heard it, but I don’t believe a word of it at a time when the government is reducing staff for monitoring and supervision in all departments . BRIAN FREE: I think the intention is that these plans will be reviewed, I think, every five years or something. So they’re not written in stone. JACK WRIGHT: But, of course, who is going to review them? In some cases, the basic committee, which is entirely government employees would , write the draft. Public consultants have no input and sometimes they never even get to the same meeting. They are with only one person at a time. They have no input. I haven’t seen many instances where the original draft has been changed as a result of any public consultant. JOAN SNYDER: Yes, John. JOHN LILLEY: I’m going to change the topic, if we’re through with the integrated resource plan. In the non-renewable energy sector, we raised the idea of compensation as being a successful mechanism for resolving conflicts. I guess it’s worked with compensating trappers for damage imposed, but we won’t get into that because there are some problems there. But it has been used in that regard by the industry to compensate for damages. I was wondering, and this might be something for the recreation and habitat people to think about, as to whether compensation could be used in the reverse way as the users of the habitat or the recreationists compensating the industry for avoided revenues or whatever. Is it possible, for instance, for the public or through a public interest group or whatever to compensate the forest managers for the loss of timber in Hidden Creek if that area is not logged? Is that a possible option that is open or is that something else that is blocked by present government rules and regulations? CLARK FAWCETT: They’re going to pay me for not growing anything. NARYHELEN POSEY: I’m going to ask you to consider a different forest issue, because in this particular question Hidden Creek is not a good example. We tried to buy them out and they would have been glad to be bought out, but McDougall wasn ’ t willing . 44 JOHN LILLEY: But does it have to be worked out with the government even involved? GUY SWINNERTON: That sort of approach, John, is not unique. There are many examples in different parts of the world. JOHN LILLEY: But it’s not used at all in Alberta. GUY SWINNERTON: There’s compensation for benefits foregone or the opportunity costs existing in certain areas. It’s a big problem that always comes up in terms of what that realistic value is, and the different timelines. A good case in point is the British National Parks system, which is basically private land. The specific mechanism there to compensate farmers for not ploughing up includes upland grazing and things of this nature. But I think increasingly what we’re seeing, in examples in Europe certainly, is the absolutely enormous costs that are involved in doing that and also the very mechanism by which those costs are raised. In principle, it certainly can be done, except in those unique circumstances where there isn’t an alternate to provide a realistic substitute for a particular site. I think we must recognize that in certain instances we might well have sites in terms of habitat or certain recreation potential, where if there isn’t any alternative, those benefits foregone -- it’s difficult to come up with a realistic value because society puts that value on it. But in instances where there is an alternative available, the principle could be worked. But I don’t think you can do it without the government because, as you say, what you’re dealing with basically are public land bases. NARYHELEN POSEY: And what amounts to a contract between the Crown and the timber interest. BRIAN FREE: I wonder if compensation might be possible when you’ve got an FNA. I guess you’ve been given permission to manage that forest for how long -- 20 years or forever. BRIAN NacDONALD: It’s 20 years here, but it’s renewable. It’s a never-ending agreement . 45 BRIAN FREE: So you’ve got that expectation that you’re going to be able to harvest that. But for timber permits and for the smaller timber users, would you be able to compensate them? They’re given a permit to harvest a public resource and they’re never really given this long-term commitment that they can harvest that in perpetuity. Maybe it would be more difficult to apply compensation in that kind of situation. BRIAN MACDONALD: I think you’re talking about a result of the other process. First you have to establish that one isn’t going to happen or one is going to have to reduce the amount of activity and therefore what happens? Do they just take the hit in their own pocketbook or does the public at large help them overcome the economic hurt? But I still think that’s not going to be the answer to resolving whether or not it’s right to be using an area for specifically for recreation or whether it should be also used for forestry. So you could always work out compensation once you’ve decided. But if you use compensation to convince, then I think it’s a cop out. If I went to Jack and said, "Look Jack, I’ll give you a million dollars if you let me go in there instead of you ," it ’ s a bit like some form of prostitution . CLARK FAWCETT: It would be cheaper just to tell Greenpeace that he’s there and they’ll stop him altogether. I think the biggest mistake we ’ ve got here is that you people should all elect a member of the public to the government instead of these monsters that you’re talking about. I had dinner with my MLA the other day and he went to the bathroom, he ate, and he sat and talked to me. He’s very much a member of the public. We all talk about the government. They’re all members of the public, too. HARVEY GARDNER: Just surround them with sandstone and they change. CLARK FAWCETT: Elect one of the members of the public, if the guy you’ve got in there is a monster, or run yourself and see how it works. BRIAN FREE: I wonder if we can get away from the government and look at the interaction closer to the field level. The companies are harvesting and the recreationists are trying to use that land and there is the problem of wildlife habitat being modified. What are some of the problems we’re having right now with the way we’re doing things? The habitat group talked about 46 clear cutting and the size of the cut blocks being used and the lack of consideration for selective harvesting. It would seem to be always the same way, that if you’re going to harvest, you clear cut in fairly large blocks. Is there any change coming in that respect? RICK WATSON: I think, personally, maybe. The thing to look at when you start talking at the field level is that the interaction usually works out pretty well. My experience with it has been to get the parties involved to sit down and do that two-way interaction with their talking so that I understand what their concerns are and they understand what I’m talking about. Then we usually work things out pretty good. HARVEY GARDNER: Just finding everybody is a problem. RICK WATSON: Yes, that can be a problem. But, you know, my point is that is perhaps one of the negatives of IRPs -- that you tend to polarize people because you put one group there and another group there and the guy in the middle. Those two groups don’t come together and mesh. And they really don’t find out what is bugging the other fellow. Nine times out of ten, if you sit down with the guy from the oil company or the biologist who is concerned for the caribou, you can come up with a solution that’s going to benefit the both of you. And it’s not a big deal. But when you start trying to put somebody between them, it doesn’t work. HARVEY GARDNER: It takes money and effort. Particularly effort to do the dialogue . RICK WATSON: It takes will on both sides to see that they have something to gain, perhaps, through compromise and by sitting down and talking. JOHN LILLEY: You’re talking about somebody being in the middle. Who are you talking about being in the middle between two groups in the planning process? The planner? RICK WATSON: My experience with IRPs -- I think of that planning body being in the middle. When we go to have an IRP done on an area that covers our forest management area, the Alberta Forest Service represents us. Nowall I’m 47 saying is that I don’t want the AFS to represent my company. I want to represent it. They’re a middleman. And they’re representing us to probably Fish and Wildlife, who is representing you. So the real issues get lost in there . JOHN LILLEY: That’s something that we touched upon in our group. That is the need, in holding these kinds of meetings and trying to resolve things, for the people who are involved in doing it to be those who can make the decisions, who have the ability to negotiate. And if you get into the integrated resource planning process and then Cabinet turns around and says "Well, we’re going to do something different," no wonder it doesn’t work, because there ’ s a lot of time and effort put into negotiation of that first settlement. Now, there may be problems with making sure that that is representative . But I think it is key that people who are going to have to live with the ultimate outcome are those who are going to make the decisions. NARYHELEN POSEY: I should think, too, the two IRPs that I ’ ve been involved with, although we had Fish and Wildlife, Forest Service, and somebody from Public Lands for planning, there we had the guy from Shell Oil, the guy from Revelstoke, and so forth. We had the actual on-the-ground players represented and it was a lot of work and a lot of time to get something that all of these people thought was workable. So, you know, when you’ve met 30 or 40 times in somebody else’s home town for a whole day at a stretch, you send it on to the government and, 60 days later, lo and behold it comes back and everything has been flipped around in funny ways. It does not really encourage you to go back into the process next time you are asked. JACK WRIGHT: I’d like to comment on what Brian said. Getting away from the IRPs and what not, I was involved with Fish and Wildlife and the Alberta Forest Service in our company study on wildlife, forestry, and integrated management. Of course it started polarized in part, but we went through the process of determining what animals we had in the area, what animal requirements were, what should be featured species, and what were the requirements of these featured species from a habitat point of view. Pretty soon we found we really weren’t far apart. It wasn’t that you needed small blocks. It wasn’t you needed large blocks. The key thing was how far was it from cover, how far was it from food, and how important was that? These kinds ^8 of things can be worked out if you can get the players to sit down together without having to go through a middle man. We had no problem, but up until that point we always worked with the Forest Service and the Forest Service went to the Fish and Wildlife. They always came back and said, "You can’t do this because Fish and Wildlife won’t let you". It wasn ’ t true at all . It was just a cop out. You could talk to the people — if it’s a fish and wildlife concern, you talk to Fish and Wildlife direct and you could work it out. If it was some other concern, you could work it out, but you can’t work it out if you have someone else doing the work for you because you’ve no assurance that they are really representing anybody but themselves . BRIAN MACDONALD: You know, I think. Jack, that was the first point we came to in our group, was that most things can be done, but when there are two people who want the same piece of land but don’t want anybody else on it, that’s where we have conflicts. No amount of integrated resource planning is going resolve the conflict between those two groups. Somebody is going to have to decide that it’s either one or the other. Or there’s both and then everybody isunhappy. JACK WRIGHT: You talk about large blocks affecting wildlife, but that’s not really true. Wide blocks may affect them only if they are wide in all directions. But you might have a block that goes five miles, as long as it is narrow and varies in shape and has the right types of cover. It’s probably the best thing for wildlife. You’re establishing a new forest for them. JACK WOODERS: I’m just going to respond to Jack ’ s comment. The problem is that most of these animals can’t wait a hundred years for these trees to grow and in which they can then live. Everyone thinks of some of the bad examples that they have seen. And this is a problem. There are some bad examples that really are unf orgiveable , in the sense that there is — I’m guessing — about a 10,000-acre block on top of the hill north of Hinton about 30 miles that they call "the Desert." JACK WRIGHT: Who is "they"? JACK WOODERS: Local people who use it and travel through it. Getting near Fred Creek. You know, there has to be enough left for the animals to live day- 49 to-day. You can’t expect the animals to come back from nowhere fifty years from now. BRIAN MELLER: That sort of follows into what I was going to say. I could see where the IRPs are not adequate for conflict resolution, because when we talk about conflicts, we’re usually talking about something immediate and short term. But I guess I’ve been seeing enough government people to try to anticipate what their response would be and they’d probably say, ’’Well, we’re looking after the population as a whole for generations to come." They probably wouldn’t believe that any one industry or any one company is visionary enough to see everything in context. I’m not saying that the government is now; otherwise we wouldn’t need a conservation strategy or even be working towards that. But I’m not convinced that, beyond conflict resolution, just simply interaction between one user and another user is going to accomplish some of these broader aims of sustainability, to get the big picture. We need some agency that can get the big picture, if that’s possible, or at least some general direction where we are going in the future, so we can make decisions like how much of the forest should be in timber production and how much should be in recreation. Right now we don’t have a vehicle to answer those kind of questions. NARYHELEN POSEY: Yes, I was talking to Paul about this. There came up several comments Paul and Brian made, that existing allocations — if I understand Fred NcDougall right, that’s every tree in the province including the three in my yard. I’m deforming them badly. The regulations that are set down for the people who have those allocations or forest management agreements are a large source of the problem. The difficulty is partly that when we’re looking at an ecological reserve which involves a tree or more and we want that essentially taken out of the timber harvest, the instant that’s said. Forest Service says, "No, we can’t take it away from anybody, we’ve already contracted this forty years ago," and somehow the forest industry is not there. Also, when we write a letter saying, "Hey, guys, the allocations and the management agreements ought to be reconsidered . There are too many regulations. It’s too hard for the people managing it to manage it well and at the time the allocations were made there were uses that hadn’t been thought of, like snowmobiles. And perhaps we’d better have a good look at the whole thing." And Paul and Brian and everyone would have us believe that they’re not that happy with the way it 50 is either. But how come they ’ re never out there saying, "Right, let’s do this." If we can get together, we can gang up on them. Because we might win . They’d be so shocked at the alliance that they might not even notice until it was all over . HARVEY GARDNER: I’m going to expose my ignorance again. Brian, we’re talking about cash laid out, so to speak, in regard to these FMAs . They’re paid in advance? They’re bid on, sort of like an oil lease or something? DARYL D’AMICO: Generally, it’s a timber development area that’s put up by the province. What they would like to do would be to encourage the production of timber within that area. So they advertise it, kind of like a sale and invite companies to give proposals and then hold public hearings on it. Generally, the one with the best proposal for overall forest management as well as employment, utilization — the best plan is usually awarded that agreement. HARVEY GARDNER: So the company doesn’t have to pay for the FMA in advance, but they have to prepare a plan? DARYL D’AMICO: No, but they pay for it in development: facility development, roads, reforestation , inventory, and in all the cut planning. HARVEY GARDNER: It’s an expensive thing in there preparing the plan and all the rest of it. The company is more or less responsible for making up a plan subject to the department’s approval. Then if you put in the best one and they want to adjust it in some way, they can do that too, right? DARYL D’AMICO: It’s negotiated with them. HARVEY GARDNER: I want to check with Jack on this. It sounds to me from what you said as if good forest management is more site specific than an absolute blanket, like you take a particular area of a cutblock and manage it specifically for that slope, etc. JACK WRIGHT: Well, what it is is forest mangement of a large tract of land. Forest management isn’t just the blocks that are harvested; it’s the blocks that aren’t harvested as well. I think that this was referred to earlier. 51 that the logger goes into a block and that ’ s his investment. He takes the wood out and then it’s available for someone else to have it. But in a forest management agreement, you have responsibility for the entire area, you have responsibility for the areas that you haven’t harvested and some you may never harvest and those that you already have harvested. HARVEY GARDNER: So it’s like music; it’s not just the sounds but the spaces in between . JACK WRIGHT : That’s right. DARYL D’AMICO: It’s an agreement for an area. It’s an area agreement, whereas a quota is a volume agreement. HARVEY GARDNER: So if you’re going to cut a specific area, you look at that particular area and ( inaudible ) . JACK WRIGHT : You decide what areas need harvesting the most to maintain the productivity of the forest. Also, there are other responsibilities. Actually I think one of the resolutions to the problem is someone should be designated as a manager of that land, given the responsibility to do it. It doesn’t have to be private like in the U.S. The same thing can be done through forest management agreements. If a person has a company, has a commitment to manage that land, whether it comes under an integrated resource plan, whether it comes under a conservation policy, these types of levels, within that group, if they have responsibility for management of that land, I think you will find that they will do a lot more for other users, for ecological reserves, for wildlife, for recreation, than having many, many groups coming in and all putting in single ideas without having the overall plan in mind at all. These overall plans are submitted and approved periodically, not just the AGP — the annual operating plan — which is a three-to-f ive year plan. There’s a twenty-year forest management agreement and there’s a ten-year forest management plan and these are continually being updated. I think that one of the main problems is that there isn ’ t any one person . Legislation gives the forest manager the responsibility to manage that land and he’s not allowed to manage it . 52 We put in areas for ecological reserves, not per se, but examples of timber types that we want left, because one day there is not going to be any of those left. We have a terrible time getting those approved, because the idea is that they should all be harvested. We have two or three examples that we have left, but instead of being twenty acres they’re ten acres and that was a fight . HARVEY GARDNER: Do we have problems in the AFS or something? JACK WRIGHT: Well, it’s just the mandate; it’s the way it is interpreted by various individuals. But if a corporation has the overall responsibility... Large corporations aren’t bad people; they have the interests of all the people, and they have people who are — I think a lot of people who are in the forest industry are recreationists . They appreciate wildlife and they ’ re in it because they love the forests. They cannot fulfill their mandate unless they are given the ability to carry out the full responsibility. HARVEY GARDNER: So if I had half a dozen pet trees and believed that they should be preserved, that wouldn’t be that simple. JACK WRIGHT: That’s not a big deal. HARVEY GARDNER: But it still wouldn’t be that simple, because somebody else has got a say, too. JACK WRIGHT: Right. It is. MARYHELEN POSEY: That’s a much better way of putting what I was trying to get at with that stewardship notion. If you have private land at least we know who’s responsible for it and what he’s going to do with it is his business. But here because it’s all spread through an agency that’s very diffuse instead of a contract constituting some stewardship mandate, it becomes impossible to address the problem of management planning outside that. BRIAN MACDONALD: We’ve got the mandate. 53 DARYL D’AMICO: Basically what happens if we’ve got an FMA and we calculate what we need to sustain the mill — let’s say it’s a million board feet just for a figure — let’s say in this whole area I turn around and say I’m going to give up 25 percent of this area for fires, for recreation, for agriculture, for trapping, for roads, for well sites, for pipelines. So I know that there are going to be other uses here. I’ve allowed 25 percent. You make up your plan and submit that to the Province and it gets approved. No problem. An oil company comes to me and they want a road or a well site. We can negotiate where it goes and it goes through. But what happens after a while, with all the other user groups coming here, is all of a sudden -- I cut 5,000 acres per year; that’s basically what we cut to get the one million board-feet -- but all of a sudden, all of these other user groups, agriculture takes a piece, recreation takes a piece, and all these other things start going out. In our area, there’s a little over 2,500 acres goes out of our area each year for other uses, that we no longer have control of. We have the responsibility, but we’re not managing it because of political override. In some ways, they say to you, you’ve got to recognize other uses. You’ve got to give it and pretty soon we’re not. The coal companies come in and you just get overridden, so we’re not "managing" it anymore, even though we have a management plan that has been approved. All of a sudden, things are way out of whack. KEN CRANE: Wouldn’t your acquisition fees for that piece of real estate be horrendous if you bought all the mineral rights from everybody else so you could totally manage it yourself? The thing is to talk about giving a forest company exclusive rights to a large, 3,000 square mile tract of land in the equivalent of private ownership. It’s sure not public land anymore and there is a hell of a lot of other stuff around there that is the public’s or has been leased out on behalf of the public. What most forest management agreements are, as far as I understand it, is that for the land management responsibility the prime thing that has been transferred across is the timber, and there are caveats to allow for other uses for the public, extraction of minerals , etc . JACK WRIGHT: It’s the timber and the rights to grow timber. 54 PAUL WOODWARD: Responsibility to grow it. Responsibility is the big thing. That’s right: responsibility. JACK WRIGHT: I think that one of the other problems is the only resource that has long-term management is forestry. Everything else is ad hoc. HARVEY GARDNER: I take exception to that. In range management, you’re looking at a long-term thing there. Our cycle is a bunch accelerated. PAUL WOODARD: Yes, that’s the key right there. You don’t have to live with your mistakes for 80 to 120 years. Wwe do. HARVEY GARDNER: Yes, that’s right. I can make a mistake and I can realize it in time. Something I’d like to mention is about the forester being best trained. . . BRIAN MACDONALD: What I was talking about was, I think, in the largest overview of all of the, let’s say, earth sciences. HARVEY GARDNER: I have no basis in earth sciences except a little bit in agriculture, but I don’t doubt that that’s true. I really resented when I was in university — and this was true of other universities at that time, and may have changed since — the soils is in the School of Agriculture. Range management comes under Forestry. Now range management was going to be my career, but I had to become a forester to take range management. This left me in a real bind. No doubt you guys are very well trained in looking after forests. You guys also had range management. Now I had to go to people with forestry training to learn range management . PAUL WOODWARD: I think that some of the things you are hearing here are things like — God forbid — the government should take back responsibility for managing the forest. Think of that as an option. Because what they said is, you take over the responsibility for managing the forest and we’ll just try to help you out here and keep you honest and make sure the other user groups are paid. But "You take care of the forest" is what they really said. And now all of a sudden they’re coming in and telling us what we can or cannot do . 55 No, we don’t wont to buy all the resources and all the things underneath the resources. We couldn’t afford it even if we wanted to. So maybe there has to be some arrangement here, but why should you have to talk to Forestry? Why can’t we talk together is one of the claims that we would make. Because, remember now, we were given the responsibility of managing and, pragmatically, the bottom line that I think you can all identify with is the fact that, have you ever busted your butt to do something right and then have some jerk who has never spent any time on it come in and tell you it’s all wrong? It’s kind of annoying . KEN CRANE: I think we have to remember too, though, that industry has a legacy behind it where it mismanaged these resources in the past and that’s why the government has the control or the influence that they do. And, over all, the public wants that watchdog role to occur. Industry responds to regulations and rules, but the situation is so dynamic that the rules should be able to be changed fast without big whoop-de-dos . But they are as tough to unwind as they are to wind up. Perpetual bureaucratic motion machine is what happens. BRIAN FREE: I keep hearing that one of the best solutions is for the different users to get together and have their dialogue and maybe not have the government mediation in the middle level. I ’ m wondering , does that happen now? Do the resource industry companies have a process where they are consulting with different users in their neck of the woods or is that where we need some more work, maybe through industry associations, to get companies to sit down the different users in their area to consult with in their planning and so on? KEN CRANE: I think that happens. The problem is that most companies are staffed to run their business and they are appropriately staffed and everybody is taxed the limit. The extras or peripheral duties that may follow, the PR or other things, are often extra hours to functional line staff. The first thing to do is set up a business and run the business and then, as the extras come in, you handle it with the existing people you’ve got. That’s not as if you had big PR people all over the place. DAVID PORTER: Not to absolutely disagree, but I think in some measure that is looked upon as part of the business — that consultation and that emphasis on 56 public awareness and that kind of thing. I just feel that, on behalf of the oil and gas industry, we put a certain amount of energy into doing that. HARVEY GARDNER: In massive attempts -- I shouldn’t say massive — in a technical sense, a farmer’s trying to negotiate with the extraction industry in the surface rights federation. This did involve a fair bit of what would appear to be after-hours work on the part of the industry people. For farmers it wouldn’t make any difference; he just didn’t work at home, that’s all. But yes, maybe the farmers and maybe somebody’s head landman with his staff are prepared to spend the whole damn evening taking flak. KEN CRANE: What happens is cyclical. Some of the conflicts and needs to discuss these things, they occur, they’re there for a while, and then they kind of dissipate, and then there is a new one or it resurges. If it was constant, then I think you would see the staffing and divisions getting set up. It also depends on just how successful a particular industry is. How rich are they? What fringe and frills can they afford? Just how much of their business is it? BRIAN FREE: So if we consider how much more efficiently the industry can operate if it could resolve a lot of these conflicts — I think that they could run their operations more efficiently and, in fact, save money. It would be a better way of doing business. You would be continually ironing out these conflicts before they get into the government’s hands. KEN CRANE: I agree. If you can resolve the conflicts. And you could always anticipate them and make everybody happy . BRIAN FREE: Well, I heard today that if only we can sit down, we could iron this out. A lot of conflicts are being ironed out when you get people together around the table. KEN CRANE: That’s it, but it’s certainly not the end all, be all, and won’t always be the case. BRIAN MACDONALD: The ones that are resolvable can be resolved in that manner if there are people allocated and resources allocated to work at it. In other 57 words, go looking for it. If you know you’re going to a different area that you’ve never been in before, and you know there are some interested people in that area — there may be some you don’t know, but at least you’ve still got a place to start. You start with the ones you know about and then maybe you can find out about some of other ones. And maybe you can resolve it. If you can’t resolve it, like I say, if someone comes to the table not willing to compromise, whether it be the company or be the other interested groups, then you’ve got a lot of problems. Basically what I’ve found is if someone comes and demands something or wants something and we have to give up more than we want to give up to do it, we fight it. It’s very easy on the one hand, the corporate strategy is, now we’ve got to go to a PR program and dump money in it and try to bs everybody that we’re actually doing what’s right. But the process for the interest group is to manipulate the press. That’s very easy to do because that’s conflict and that’s what sells newspapers. You see it all the time. That’s just great because that gets everything irresolvable ; it gets it in the politician’s hands. He’s running scared, so he’s going to do the balanced thing and basically nobody gets exactly what they want . It’s probably closer to the interest group getting what they want as opposed to a win-win situation for both. Yet, I say those are the tough ones. Those are the ones you can’t work in this . . . TOM VARTY : If I may just expand upon that, our company has had a fair amount of conflicts with trappers. I sat down one day and was just analysing what happened, and the trappers that gave us the most problems — they’ve gone to the government boards and that sort of thing — are the guys who we’ve given the most attention to and made ourselves most accessible to in terms of communicating with these people. The guys who we just send a letter to or phoned up or gave a lot less attention to are the guys we have no or very little problem with. It seems pretty common that the more communication we had with people, those were the guys who gave us the most trouble. I guess, like Brian said, the problem wasn ’ t resolvable right from the start . I don’t think, no matter how many staff are out there it’s going to solve it. BRIAN FREE: That sort of goes against the idea of increasing the communication . 58 TOM VARTY: I’m saying that if the problem is constant and you can see that the staff is going to solve that problem. . . But I submit that maybe even if you have that staff, if the conflict is pretty entrenched right from the start, I’m not sure that those extra staff are going to help you out. HARVEY GARDNER: If you solve some of the ones that can be solved, then they don’t become insoluble too . MARYHELEN POSEY: I’d like to comment on this. Back to stereotyping : the first time, I think in this room, that I was speaking to a Forestry issue, a gentleman who is not present today — Paul will remember vividly, I’m sure — repeatedly referred to "our representative from the Wilderness Association." I’m not even a member of the Wilderness Association, let alone a representative of it. The groups I represent don’t get quoted very much in the paper, because we tend to prefer non-polarized positions. There are things that are all or none, but they're not as common as you’d like to think. We try to keep a very low profile so we don’t get quoted very often. Wilderness Association does. Sierra Club gets quoted more than they do and let me tell you, Greenpeace — all they have to do is sneeze and the newspapers have got that. But I am afraid it is the people who are getting the media attention who are then becoming the image of the conservation groups to the industry . JOAN SNYDER: I have something: this is the kind of touchy, but I feel I have to to bring it up. It has to do with this idea of management. I’ve got to go back to this for a minute, because I’d like to clarify or clear the air, about something that maybe I’m the only one having a problem with. It has to do with the idea of, management for what purpose? I see any company that is managing a tract of land, to be managing it so they can make money. That’s their prime purpose in managing the land. Now, that is not necessarily the purpose of other people and so conficts arise here. If the time comes when this managing the land or forest or whatever for making a profit becomes what seems to be destructive to other groups, then there has to be a mechanism for resolving this, because at this point, no matter how great the people are who are working for this corporation, the corporation is still going to dictate that they’re out there to make profit. So the people working for them may also have to take a stand that they wouldn’t take if they didn’ t have to. Now 59 I think there has to be a mechanism to resolve it. Maybe this is where we run into problems, this is where we get this stonewalling, at this point. I don ’ t know. RICK WATSON: We touched on that point this morning. I think it’s a real common misconception that good economics and good forest management are mutually exclusive. They’re not. Good forest management and good economics go hand in hand. If you want to ensure yourself a long-term wood supply, you’re not going to go out and rape and pillage and risk the loss of that land base . JOAN SNYDER: Excepting I come from B.C. RICK WATSON: Okay, where their forest industry has some problems. JOAN SNYDER: That’s right. DARYL D’AMICO: On the other hand, you can’t risk having that land base go to single-use groups or have that area chunked off and say, "Hey, you no longer have the rights to that," or else economically you have a problem. JOAN SNYDER: I agree with you, Rick; that is true. That’s the best way to manage the land as foresters, to take care of it, but at the same time you have to have somebody out there who says, "Wait a minute. " JACK WRIGHT: The forest industry has an investment. Therefore, they need a profit . LES BARLOW: Another misconception goes hand in hand with that, and that’s that as forest managers we’re only concerned with managing timber. That’s not the case. Managing the other natural resources there goes hand in hand with that and we do that, although our priority is timber production in a lot of areas. We’re always looking at water resources and wildlife, in varying degrees, depending on where we’re operating. I don’t think that’s understood. JOAN SNYDER: That’s right. A lot of those things are not understood by the vast majority of people. 60 PAUL WOODARD: I think philosophically we have to remember that management, by this one definition, is the understanding, prediction, and control of outcomes. Whether you’re trying to understand, predict, and control ecosystems, trees, national parks — even in the national parks they have a forest management plan — or wildlife. When we talk about management and wildlife, we talk about water management. In forestry it seems to be that the goal is always profit. We’ve heard that profit may not be bad for forestry; we’ve also heard that forestry is more than just profit. In fact we’ve decided that perhaps most of the places where we live or resources that we have require our management or else they couldn’t sustain the demands that we are demanding from them. So I guess we have to understand that everybody’s in some form of management, that it’s not necessarily bad, and may not necessarily be good. But if there is one redeeming aspect to this whole problem it’s the fact that our management strategies are usually based on histories, histories which we tend to like to repeat. In forestry, that means usually that we’ve developed an industry around lodgepole pine and white spruce, species which naturally occur here. And there’s a real good chance that we will try our best to maintain those species that have occurred here, which I believe that you believe is in your best interest. Now if we were in fact to bring over eucalyptus and try to sell you the benefits of having eucalyptus, I would question the responsibility of us as professionals . I think generally what we’re talking about is profit; we’re talking about making histories, futures, and we ’ re talking about maintaining the environment and ecosystems in terms that you’re comfortable with . JOAN SNYDER: I would like to mention there’s one other conifer that is very common in this province. SPEAKER: Don’t say it. JOAN SNYDER: It’s a fir. Balsam fir. HARVEY GARDNER: Paul, is one of the reasons for cut blocks something to do with wind effect on selective cutting or is it simply economics of scale? JACK WRIGHT: Well, if you want to regenerate lodgepole pine, it takes an extreme amount of heat to open cones and the only way you can get that amount 61 of heat is to expose the area to the sun and get the cones within close proximity to mineral soil so the reflective heat will open the cones . You can’t do that in selective logging. DARYL D’AMICO: Getting back to your question, Harvey, cut block size in the province is set down by what you call operating ground rules. These operating ground rules are actually a balance between what Fish and Wildlife wants, what’s good for aesthetics, what’s good for blowdown, what’s good for silviculture, what’s good for water protection. So in some cases maybe Fish and Wildlife only want tiny little blocks and they’ve indicated that over and over again. Silviculturally maybe you need a bigger cut block, to log economically maybe you want a good size cut block. Basically what happens is we get down and look over all of these things. You end up with a compromise. The ground rules of the province say that you can’t exceed 150 acres for a pine cut block, that’s the standard. JACK WRIGHT: That ’ s the average . DARYL D’AMICO: Yes, that’s average. Maximum is 250 acres . So they’ve come up basically with a combination that actually compromises, I guess, or balances all of the other needs. TOM VARTY: When you’re cutting in spruce types, the maximum size, unless there are extenuating circumstances, is 2k hectares, which are not particularly big blocks. They’re quite small blocks. Where I’m from, the biggest cut in Alberta and 99 percent of the blocks we cut are 2k hectares or less. If they exceed that size, there’s a reason, like a blow down, bug kill, or something like that. JACK WRIGHT: And yet for fish and wildlife concerns , really, block size and acreage mean nothing. It’s block configuration and it’s winter cover. I think the big perception in logging at the start was logging as a destructive process. You want to hide it. Really logging is a constructive process — the establishment of new stands. You should be looking at the stand you’re trying to create: is that what you want and do you want a bunch of stands that are only 2k hectares? What do you do with a stand of that size? Is it big enough for wildlife? Don’t look at the fact that you’ve got a hole and so 62 we’ve got lost life. Eventually that hole that you created is going to be a stand. That’s what has to support the wildlife of the future. That’s where you have to put your campground. That’s where you ’ re going to establish parks. All these other uses are going to be in that new stand that you created. So you should be looking at trying to create the type of stand you want, or the corridor or whatever it is that you want, not trying to hide that stand because eventually what you’re trying to hide is going to be the one you’re going to see. JACK WOODERS: Jack, I’ve got to disagree with you. We’re not talking about one 24-acre or 24-hectare stand, there’s thousands of them. JACK WRIGHT: But they’re not all joined up. JACK WOODERS: That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s not a bad thing. There’s some joining, of course. JACK WRIGHT: You and the Wildlife people had better get together, because the wildlife experts don’t agree with you. They are interested in fur, but they take a look at all the animals that are there, the requirements , and what they need to protect them, to maintain those populations. And then when they do that, there are certain areas they have to protect: the riparian zones, the zones next to water resources. Those should be protected. JACK WOODERS: Oh, I agree one hundred percent — especially the headwaters of the creeks . JACK WRIGHT: You can do this. You talk about streamside buffers, well in certain areas, you need these. These are the types of things you’ve got to look at. Blanket rules of "we don ’ t want ...," that it has to be less than 25 acres, 50 acres, 100 acres -- that’s irrelevant to an animal or anybody else. What should that habitat. . . look like? PAUL WOODARD: You need the mobility that the animal has. Jack. That’s what you need . JACK WOODERS: I want to leave the animal there so he has some mobility. 63 PAUL WOODARD: If you wanted to leave the animal there, Jack, you wouldn’t set a trap to begin with. JACK WOODERS: No, it’s a renewable resource. I’m not like the forestry people who are trying to clear cut the country. JOAN SNYDER: I think on that note we’ll go on to Question 6, because we have obviously not resolved everything. We are working on it. I think we’ve come a long way, but I think it’s time to move on to Question 6 and see if some of these problems can be resolved in the future. So let’s move on and start with some reports again, and I think we have Brian. BRIAN MACDONALD: I guess the thing is, just to sum it up, what we think needs to happen is the responsibility for the land management needs to be given to one agency, with some agreement on common objectives. Interdepartment and interagency conflict needs to be covered off in a policy form and that group needs to have the authority to manage — responsibility and authority. All other referrals and inputs, etc., need to go through this one agency . The monitoring and accountability needs to be done by the public, some representative of the public. That needs to continue. I think a couple of areas that need to be resolved to ensure that that happens is something somebody else mentioned already, and that is that certain government programs seem to be in conflict with each other as well as the policies. So I think if you focus it in on one group, specifically for the Green area, it may help resolve some of the problems. I understand that monitoring is certainly required by some public because of the points you raised earlier. It gets down [to a choice] between economics and what someone else thinks is right in making that decision. That’s all. JOAN SNYDER: May I ask if you’re speaking of a government agency of some kind to deal with this? I want to get it clarified. BRIAN MACDONALD: Yes, I’m saying one government agency. JOAN SNYDER: Rather than the two or three that we have now? 64 BRIAN MACDONALD: That’s right, and they can delegate — whether it be a forest management agreement or what kind of agreement — that can be delegated as long as the monitoring, etc. , remains in their control. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you. I guess we’re back to you rabble rousers. NARYHELEN POSEY: I’m going to rearrange the order of things here a little bit now and talk first about things that we foresee likely happening, and some of the things we would like to see happening, or are afraid we’ll see happening. We do expect that there will be a continued increased competition for the land base, from all users. We anticipate that this is going to mean probably more intensive silviculture. Maybe you’re already doing everything you think you know how. We’ve written down improved technologies, which may produce more products from less forests, but I always hate to start digging myself a hole while saying, by the time I get this hole dug, somebody will have invented the ladder. Maybe they haven’t, so counting on improved technologies is not necessarily a great idea. We’d like to see a little more selective harvesting for specific locations. Particularly , we’ve got habitat that is very fragile. We’re afraid that if we don’t get something like this integrated plan with some agency responsible for overseeing it with real authority, we’re going to find ourselves with more and more conflicts ending up in court rather than at the table. But regardless of what we do, we want some more ecological reserve establishments, biggerones, please. Regardless of what we do, we are going to have a systematic continuing degradation of habitat. That degradation of habitat will especially affect the more fragile habitats and therefore the more rare and endangered of our animal species. This will reduce species diversity quite systematically and it will reduce genetic diversity within every species that survives and there is nothing we can do now to entirely reverse that process, I don’t think. We’ve gone too far. We’ve already reduced many species to a very narrow gene pool. What that means is we’ve really got to do what we can do now, because even if we do the best we can, we’re going to continue to lose. Jack will jump up; he doesn’t like this pessimistic outlook. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you, Maryhelen. Okay, Harvey: agriculture. 65 HARVEY GARDNER: Instead of saying what we saw, we ought to refer back to Question 3 and say what we hope might happen. This is just a very few specific suggestions, starting out with designated routes for off-road vehicles and other designated routes for hikers, horses, and so forth. We don’t want trail bikes or mountain bikes on the same trail as horses. Organized groups to be responsible for trail maintenance and upkeep — I understand the Alberta Four-by-Four Association has been proposing such a course of action for their own use, where each club would maintain and look after — perhaps even close — an extensive trail. We feel that those of us in agriculture, if we don’t start supporting people who have constructive ideas, we’re going to wind up with the urban population [inaudible] us out entirely and not just out of the Green zone. The Alberta Conservation Strategy can be used as a conflict resolving format by encouraging more discussion and interaction, such as this workshop . The possibility of less multiple use in some areas and more single or dual use — this is referring to recreation use that would presumably not conflict with either extraction or forest use completely. Look at alternative pastures to take cattle out of forested lands. Brian, you suggested that, according to statistics, there is very little timber taken out of the Eastern Slopes south of Calgary. We propose that the forest industry should give up on that area entirely and concentrate on something worthwhile and do the same with livestock. Perhaps eventually more formal tree farming could be used long term with grazing between the trees. This has been done for years in Europe. Thank you. JOAN SNYDER: Okay. Non-Renewable. KEN CRANE: I guess as a prediction for the future, we expect to see expanded and continued use of the forest land base, recognizing that it’s a finite land base and looking at more intensive practices. If you’re in the energy field, it’s recovering every drop of energy that you can get out of it. If you’re a forester, it’s getting more productivity from the forest. We also see a return to the forest land base upon completion of operations or exploration facilities — gas plants have a life of, say, 15 or 20 years and the system around it, a coal mine 20 to 25 years — these areas being reclaimed and returned back to the forest land base. There is a spinoff side of reclamation that relates to that as well. You have reclamation of some of these facilities to desired land uses. It could be returned to forestry. 66 development of lakes for recreation , fisheries, whatever. We saw continued and increased public involvement and accountability in being a user of the forest land base. We saw two extremes and two positions happening on the public side. One was called "scaraphobia , " I think. It’s radical, polarized positions, court cases, big compensation claims, and settlements. Or our experience to date will set precedents for resolving future conflict. We’re going to learn from history and hopefully do a better job. We can see that happening as well. We have a last one — accommodation. That’s a big word and everybody is going to have to be more accommodating . I think that about wraps it up . JOAN SNYDER: Okay. Lastly, Guy on recreation. GUY SWINNERTON: In concert with most other reporters, our group saw that clearly there is going to be increased competition for the land base, certainly from the types of recreation which very much rely on quality environments. One is likely to be the increasing demand for those types of situations. We look at the American circumstance and tend to follow them to an increasing extent, and we sort of relate socio-economic trends to preferred types of recreation. What we are likely to see is that recreation is becoming much more sophisticated and discriminating in the types of environment in which they want to participate and that involves not only the appropriate physical setting but also social and management setting. In this regard, I think that once again we need to look at the American precedence and begin to investigate what are the limits of acceptable changes within environments in order to retain their recreation value and, in certain instances, habitat value for wildlife. We feel, too, as a group, that while clearly, integrated resource management has its role, at the same time we have to recognize that there are certain conflicts that cannot be resolved through multiple use and coexistence in time and space of certain activities. We have to recognize that in those instances there has to be a single use regime and that doesn’t apply solely to recreation, but other users as well. In that sense we have to look at providing a mosaic of opportunities from a recreation perspective, all the way from primitive experience right through to urban. As part of this overall policy development and rationalization of the types experiences and opportunities that need to be provided, I think we have to keep in mind that the value of part of the real estate, whether we are talking about a forest 67 environment or anywhere else for that matter, isn’t solely dependent on the production of a tangible market product which has an immediate market value. And if, as would quite understandabily seem to be the case, we increasingly attempt to quantify, in economic terms, values and outputs from earthspace, we have to recognize thaf there are those nonmarket values which to some extent have to be accommodated. And while we’ve improved quite considerably in terms of providing upfront those nonmarket values, we’ve still got a long way to go. Certainly I think there is an element of concern as to the extent to which government, because of its emphasis on economic recovery at this time — and that is understandable — accommodates all those nonmarket values in the resource allocation decision-making process . JOAN SNYDER: Well, I guess we’re open to discussion again. MARYHELEN POSEY: One point that ties in with something Guy said and also something Ken said: there are times when you must say, "This is the only possible thing to do." No compromise available. We ’ re going to be looking, as Ken said, a great deal more toward people being accommodating with each other. We must get it out of our heads that the animals can learn to accommodate better. Many of them can’t and, even if they could, we don’t know how to tell them. It’s like the people who wanted us to move [inaudible] newts from one side of the highway to the other, so that their original home could be turned into a gravel pit. And the newts didn’t understand the eviction notice. One of the things we’re going to have to get is that agency that will look at all this and resolve these absolute issues. And anybody who’s got an idea of how to make that agency foolproof, I’d love to hear it. That is where we’re going to find ourselves really working. It’s not outlining the problems, not outlining some of the solutions, but figuring out howto make that agency really behave properly and work all the time. Whatever it is, whether it’s public committee or government agency or one person, that’s where we’re going to find ourselves really sweating . HARVEY GARDNER: That would be difficult. Remember what happened to the EGA 10 years ago. 68 BRIAN FREE: One thing I’d like to find out today is looking into the future for the forest industry. It seems to be in a state of transition right now. There’s much more attention and interest in aspen. I am wondering is the nature of our forest industry really changing now and is this going to have some important implications for forest management in the future? Are we getting away from just managing for pine and spruce and what is the impact aspen is having on the way the forest companies are thinking? JACK WRIGHT: Well, I think there are definitely going to be markets for both species. I think that the big danger is — certainly I think the markets aren’t going to be exclusively for aspen, but if we don’t watch it, our product from the boreal will be exclusively aspen. CLARK FAWCETT: Tent caterpillars will look after it. JACK WRIGHT: Well, they might help, the way they’re all working on it. BRIAN MACDONALD: I think what you’re asking — if you’re saying that it’s going to ease the requirement in many cases for the need to control vegetation to ensure that pine and spruce gets established and growing, in some cases it will, but in many cases it won’t. It will depend on what land base you’re using the particular land base for. If it’s managed for hardwood, then you’re all right. If it’s managed for softwood, then you may want to do that. There may be some areas that you will be able to manage for mixed. That’s all, I guess, a function of the distance, the quality of the site, the access to the area, all of those things that go into deciding what you feel may be the best species or mix of species to manage on that land base. The short answer, I guess, is in some areas it will take away from the business of trying to only to manage for conifer. . . in some cases. Certainly in no way would it be in all cases, or even a majority of cases. BRIAN FREE: No, I don’t see the aspen replacing the conifers as the main product of forests. PAUL WOODARD: It may. It’s not the demand so much as it is the environmental limitations of the species that are competing and the demands created by 69 society for those species that are having trouble competing . If we’re not careful in our management of conifers, we could actually increase the number of acres to poplar or aspen, whatever. And we could suffer from this proverbial monocultural problem. We could also be suffering from losses of habitat you now enjoy as a result of not having the coniferous volume, which is having trouble competing. Now it’s not the conifers’ fault that they can’t compete. It’s not really our fault that we ’ ve been selecting them, but if we’re not allowed, perhaps, to do some of the things which we think you really want done, you could end up with a monoculture of aspen, and you could end up with a single resource. Now from an environmental standpoint, does that make sense that in fact we are giving aspen a competitive edge? HARVEY GARDNER: Yes, it’s just like overgrazing my pasture and then increasing theweeds. DARYL D’AMICO: I’ve been in the reforestation business for about 12 years now and I find that we have no trouble getting reforestation established like pine and spruce. You can do that. But we’re finding out now that if you don’t use something like herbicide to control the competition, the pine and spruce are being overtaken by poplar or by aspen. They’re actually choking out and dying out and we’re losing a tremendous lot of land back to aspen where we should be protecting our investment. Lot of that land is being left and is being lost, and it’s going to be lost to multiple use as well. HARVEY GARDNER: Your reseeding program, and I don’t mean this in a critical way, but your reseeding program is an interference with natural succession. The thing is that you’re going to have to wait a thousand years to get where you were when you started cutting. Well, nevermind, a hundred, but a hell of a lot longer if you’re waiting for the whole thing. DARYL D’AMICO: Reforestation started in this province in 1966 when the Province said that companies shall reforest anything that they cut over. In 1966 the companies thought, a lot of people thought, that if you just leave the stuff it’s going to come back naturally. It wasn’t until they started doing regen surveys in about 1974, which was the year seven wh<^r<^ you had to turn in your regen survey, that they found out that this areu i n’t coming back by itself and there is a tremendous amount of backlog land unat had to be 70 put back into production. That stuff has been for the most part, about 90-95 percent of it, restocked. But if you go back now after 10-years, the 10 years is just about up — 10 years of experience, you’re finding out that that stuff isn’t living. It’s starting to die out because of the competition that’s coming in with it. So now our thinking is that in order to protect that investment, you have to go back and do some sort of stand tending or herbicide or you have to do something in order to protect the spruce and pine. Otherwise, what is going to happen is you’re going to get a reduction in the allowable cuts and you’re going to get less and less land use values, less multiple use over the long term. So everybody is going to suffer, not just the lumber companies . HARVEY GARDNER: We can understand that on an industry-wide basis. On a site specific basis, we don’t give a damn if it’s aspen or whatever. DARYL D’AMICO: But that’s where the management plans come in — maybe somebody should say, "Hey, in this area we manage intensively and you guys are allowed to spray herbicides here or thin or do what you need, but over here we have another issue and we’re going to leave this land and not manage it so intensively and use this for some other uses, different uses, something that’s compatible." But these types of things are going to have to be worked out in the future . MARYHELEN POSEY: It’s becoming a cliche of renewable resources that all of these management issues are genuinely management of people . It changes your focus enough to recognize that you’re not managing trees or elk or whatever as a goal. You’re allowing people to choose a goal and managing how the people get there . PAUL WOODARD: I know most of the people in this room probably more than the other foresters do and perhaps you haven’t met these guys before. In light of the fact that a number of you haven’t asked questions yet, I want you to know that what you are looking at, what you are dealing with here, are the Who’s Who in forestry management. You’re not talking about the Boards of Directors, you’re talking about the guys who are actually doing it on the street, in the field. Every major forest company that is represented here will have a history -- Jack’s retired now, but had a history with rhampion — a long 71 history. I don’t wont you to hold back. I don’t want you worrying about, "Well, I should have asked him" or "If they had only talked about this." We can’t answer any questions you don’t ask. Now’s the time to ask because there’s enough talent in this room in forestry particularly , to answer those questions. I think you will agree that the answers you got, you might not have agreed with and you might not like, but they’re our attempt at the best shot. Ask them now. KEN NELSON: Actually, what he is, he’s on the trail of the wild stereotype and he’s going to kill it. PAUL WOODARD: You invite ministers in here, you invite government people in here, and they don’t show, and they don’t show, and they don’t show. And then when they do show or they are represented, they send some poor sucker who’s so far down the line he can’t make any decision. Well, these are the folks who are not the poor suckers down the line, you know. I mean I’ve seen this before . JOAN SNYDER: But I’ve got a question. CLARK FAWCETT: It sounds like you are fairly well down on the totem pole, too . PAUL WOODARD: No, but I’m sure a sucker. KEN NELSON: Only when it comes to slow pitch. JOAN SNYDER: I’ve got a question for you. I’ve been hearing basically that all of you — except for you, Brian, and maybe I misinterpreted what you said -- are saying, yes, perhaps we can take some percentage of the forest and manage it intensively and do what we want with it and set aside some other parts for other activities. I have heard several of you seem to say that, but I’ve also gotten another idea from somewhere that you also feel like you want to have a bit more control over all of the forest resources. I would like to know if there is any consensus about how you feel about the forest resource in terms of your management and management by others of parts of it for certain activities totally separate from the forest resource . 72 LES BARLOW: I don’t think we’re in a position to do that right yet. We heard a lot about intensive management, increased productivity, therefore we don’t need as big a land base and we can produce the same amount of wood. We’re not quite at that stage, I don’t believe, in forest management here in Alberta or in a lot of places — in B.C. for that matter. BRIAN FREE: Is there a future for that type of intensive timber management in Alberta, where you take an area and you use it to grow trees basically and forget about the other values and then leave some other areas where you can’t harvest the trees? JACK WRIGHT: Do you really want that? LES BARLOW: I think there is a potential for that someplace. JACK WRIGHT: I think it’s a mistake. I think you should try to accommodate as many uses on as much of the area as you can. You can say this is going to be managed for forestry only; this is going to be managed for recreation only. You can integrate these. Some of the best ski trails in the province are on forest-managed land — this type of thing. There is no reason why you’ve got to set up a Canmore nordic centre where they don’t have any snow. Where did they hope to hold the May 8 Seniors? They had to go up to the Spray Lakes old logging area to run their Canadian Seniors this year. But there is no reason why they have to have these areas set aside. A recreation area needs a very small percentage of the land. There are areas that you have to dedicate to recreation, but you don’t need to tie up 10 square miles. You can get the same experience, probably other than the wilderness one. Many recreational values can be enhanced on managed land. I can see in the not too distant future where the national parks are going to have difficulty in finding a good spot to put a campground because the forests aren’t being managed. The trees are becoming dangerous in a lot of those areas that they have. The only thing that saved them was the bulk of it originated in 1889. It is an ideal situation for them. One hundred years from now or 50 years from now, they’re not going to have that type of thing and they’re going to be looking at those managed lands outside the parks for their future recreation values. 73 PAUL WOODARD: There are actually ample examples of this in other countries, but I think Guy can address that. They’re finding in the Sequoias that, in the absence of management, in the absence of man, the character changes have been so drastic that they have to go in now and get involved to maintain those characteristics of visibility that the people have paid a lot of money to see. I think some of the ungulate populations in some of our parks are getting to a stage now where they’re not quite as large as they used to be or diseases are becoming a problem and the vegetation is changing. That ’ s another issue. Maybe you guys can give other examples, but I tend to agree with Jack that it’s probably a mistake to just say, "We can Plastilux this area and it’ll stay that way forever and ever, amen." MARYHELEN POSEY: I’m going to insert myself into this very quickly to say that this is an argument that has raged for probably the best part of 80 years in Parks Canada and it’s public and I don’t think we better tie ourselves into it too tightly. There is a very serious question as to whether we are trying to preserve what is there now or whether we are trying to permit a natural process to continue. I know my mother-in-law saw her first virgin forest on the east coast and she wrote us in great shock, it was the most untidy, messy place she’d ever seen. Of course it is, but it is a natural process, in that case, that they’re trying to preserve, rather than a present state. We’re certainly not going to resolve that argument today, but I think you should know the size of it. BRIAN MACDONALD: I think there’s two questions. I think there are sometimes areas that you can set aside. It may not be forever, but you can set it aside for a period of time and say, "We’re going to stay there for this use." But I don’t think it should be a fixed thing. It should be fairly dynamic. Those things should move as things change — either the plant community changes or vegetation or whatever. You can do it. But, on the other hand, I think also that there are areas -- and we’re getting probably to the point where maybe we will in the next 10 to 20 years — where you may be able to Justify intensively managing one acre to get more fibre as opposed to you managing four acres on an extensive basis. But that doesn’t mean to say that you won’t extensively manage the other areas either. 74 JACK WRIGHT: That’s right; you should manage the whole thing . Some will have priorities, but the whole thing should be managed for as many resources as you can . GUY SWINNERTON: I think the other argument is what Naryhelen was saying, and to some extent I’m sure Dave would say: It’s just that, if you went to that stage, you can have areas which were intensively managed for forest production. It’s just as important to have a general sensitivity to conservation. Overall there still needs to be those significant areas where it might be required to let the natural process go its whole route, not only in terms of benchmarks and things like that, but in terms of looking at the specific value of that. In other instances, we need a certain protectionism mechanism to ensure the retention of certain desirable habitats, whether it is for recreation or whatever factors. In either instance you’ve got management and there has to be a decision. I think that the point is that those have to be drawn out in a realistic way by setting objectives and the means of reaching those objectives. In some instances, it might be just hold back and, as much as one has a closed system, let the full and natural process go through. In other instances, there is clearly need for intervention in terms of management. The problem at this point in time both within the parks system and elsewhere is that we haven’t necessarily set down what our goals and objectives are and what are the means by which we can achieve those. We tend to use blanket statements and we reduce everything to the lowest common denominator . NARYHELEN POSEY: Just to make that more exciting : in order to do your best toward maintaining species diversity along with genetic diversity, within the species you ought to have one sample of every ecotype in each of these categories — one that is going through its natural process and one that you are sort of preserving in plexiglass. And if you think this government is going to do that, you’re out of your mind. DARYL D’AMICO: I’ve got to sneak off here, but I want to get one word in first. I think the policy of the Eastern Slopes, the strategy for that area, has been set through that process and I think that the integrofod resource management planning process is an excellent process. I don’t think that we should throw it out the window and say it’s not working. I don’t think we 75 Should duplicate it, I don’t think we should come up with a different system. I guess what I’d like to say is that the integrated resource planning system is the best planning system that we ’ ve got , although there may be some fall downs to it. Maybe this process can be improved. It is an excellent process and I think it should continue. I don’t think we should throw it out the window. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Maybe we need a few more guidelines to cover the balance of the province, like stuff that maybe is outside of the Eastern Slopes, some general brainwork strategy guidelines, and then have the integrated resource management plans take their course and try to get those things to work for them. In my mind that’s an excellent process and we should continue in that direction rather than throwing it out the window and saying, "Hey, that thing doesn’t work, lets start over again for something new and something different. " MARYHELEN POSEY: It took fifteen years to (inaudible). DARYL D’AMICO: Anyway, I’ve got to take off. JOAN SNYDER: Thank you very much for coming. Maybe before you go, maybe we should just for a moment — it looks like things are pretty well wrapping up here and I would certainly like to thank those people who’ve come and taken the time to be here today and discuss these problems with us, especially those of you who may have felt you were on the firing line in some way. You weren’t! We wanted to talk to you. We wanted to find out what your ideas were and work with you, because that is essentially what the conservation strategy is about. It’s finding ways to work together, to build, and to make something livable for all of us. I do want to thank those of you who have come and taken your time today. I really do appreciate it. I think on that note. I’ll turn the meeting over to Brian who has some concluding remarks. BRIAN MELLER: Well, I’m slated for 10 minutes and I can put your mind at ease that I won’t take 10 minutes. Again, I would like to reiterate to thank you for coming to this. I’m profoundly thankful that I don’t have to pull it together and write a sectoral report because I think it will be a somewhat formidable task. Hopefully, beyond those benefits we’ve obtained from you. 76 from your candidness, in preparation of the sectoral report, I hope that there was some benefit to you in appreciating the other viewpoints that are here. It seems to me that two common points of ground, or relatively common points of ground are, one, that we needed more communication, and I hope that this was one way we could facilitate that and facilitate each other’s viewpoint. The second was that you didn’t necessarily need the government in that communication. We sort of chose to exclude the government from this meeting, I guess because we assumed it might be more of a hindrance than a help. In retrospect, perhaps it would have been a good idea to have them here, but. . . MARYHELEN POSEY: Only if you could get the Minister or the ADM. BRIAN MELLER: We are looking towards, once we get this report more formalized, to perhaps having another workshop with the government. Hopefully some of the ideas that came out of it today can be conveyed to them, that this is what the industry, this is what the users are saying. These are the areas of consensus we have come to. Anyway, I do again want to thank you for your candidness, for your diligence in participating in the discussion. Thank you. JOAN SNYDER; I guess, with that, we can adjourn the meeting. 77 WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS There were 33 people in attendance at the meeting, including six ECA staff. The participants included : NAME RESIDENCE USER GROUP: AGRICULTURE BLACKBURN, CECIL PINCHER CREEK FAWCETT, CLARK CONSORT FRIESEN, ELSIE ARDROSSAN GARDNER, HARVEY NANTON USER GROUP: HABITAT BARBER, NELSON SUNDRE FULLERTON, LYLE EDMONTON POSEY, MARYHELEN CALGARY SNYDER, DR. JOAN GRANDE PRAIRIE WOODERS, JACK EDSON USER GROUP: LOGGING BARLOW, LES GRANDE PRAIRIE D’AMICO, DARYL WHITECOURT HOHNE, HELMUT EDSON MACDONALD, BRIAN GRANDE PRAIRIE VARTY, TOM HIGH LEVEL WATSON, RICK GRANDE PRAIRIE WILLIAMSON, TIM EDMONTON WOODARD, DR. PAUL EDMONTON WRIGHT, JACK HINTON USER GROUP: NON-RENEWABLE ALLEN, MIKE ST. ALBERT CRANE, KEN EDMONTON MELLER, BRIAN LETHBRIDGE PORTER, DAVID CALGARY USER GROUP: RECREATION DODGE, DAVE EDMONTON MCLEAN-HAYDEN, JANIS EDMONTON RICHARDSON, BOB CALGARY SHERRAN, LOUISE WINTERBURN SWINNERTON, DR. GUY EDMONTON ECA STAFF FREE, BRIAN LILLEY, JOHN NELSON, KEN PRETTY, RANDALIN SANDERSON, KIM WEBB, CAL AFFILIATION FOOTHILLS PROTECTIVE ASSOC. UNITED FARMERS OF ALBERTA UNIFARM FED. OF ALBERTA NATURALISTS ALTA TRAPPERS’ CENTRAL ASSOC . ALBERTA FISH & GAME ASSOC. CANADIAN NATURE FEDERATION GRANDE PRAIRIE REGIONAL COLLEGE ALTA TRAPPERS’ CENTRAL ASSOC . CANADIAN FOREST PRODUCTS LTD. BLUE RIDGE LUMBER PRODUCTS MEDICINE LODGE TIMBER PRODUCTS PROCTOR & GAMBLE CANADIAN FOREST PRODUCTS LTD. PROCTOR & GAMBLE CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF FORESTRY DEPT. OF FOREST SCIENCE U OF A FORMER CHIEF FORESTER - CHAMPION FOREST PRODUCTS LTD. ALBERTA POWER LTD. LUSCAR LTD. LETHBRIDGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE CANADIAN PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION CDN PARKS & WILDERNESS SOCIETY ALBERTA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION UNAFFILIATED ALBERTA SNOWMOBILE ASSOCIATION CDN PARKS & WILDERNESS SOCIETY •u' '" . V"-. .. f. ~' ■|; cii-j A. •'■ } v; .; ' ’■ '■ ■ ‘ - ' • /.A \i . A .n ^ ‘ .'• ' J k, . . 7i . - i J > .vr, JAj .Tifi tW .4j*4i 3 3286 07784243 9