UBC Undergraduate Research

BC woodlot management : basic management requirements, current and future challenges, and potential solutions for BC woodlot licensees Walters, Duncan

Abstract

Woodlots in BC play a key role in creating jobs in communities and providing personalized management options that address the concerns of local stakeholders. These small, area-based tenures face many challenges, however, including dealing with small economies of scale, forest health issues, climate change, market access, and coping with oftentimes ill-formed forest policy. By addressing the relevant legislation, this paper addresses the basic requirements for woodlot licensees to obtain and manage a woodlot; it also overviews many of the contemporary challenges faced by licensees, and poses possible solutions to those challenges. The most prominent barriers to financial and managerial success are associated with forest policies that result in significant administrative burden and limit the ability for woodlot licensees to diversify their revenue streams. Limited harvest volumes also leave them vulnerable to catastrophic events and unable to make large capital investments. The strengths of woodlots rest in their ability to serve value-added markets, and the small size of woodlots allows them to respond quickly to market demand. To improve the economic viability of woodlots forest policy must be specifically designed to deal with these small harvest volumes. More research, investment, and flexibility with regard to forest practices and alternative revenue streams are essential to provide woodlot licensees with the tools for continued success.

Item Citations and Data

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International