Municipal Forestry Program - Background & Facts

The mandate for funding the Forestry program, as stipulated by Council in 1981, is as follows:

“Forestry management expenditures and operational costs will be financed entirely through the cumulative revenues generated by sales of the forest resources.”

The Forestry program is self-funded with no costs to the taxpayers of North Cowichan. In fact, since 1987, the forestry profits have done the following:

• Transferred $1,317,000 forestry profit to general revenues.

• Established a rainy day fund for the forestry program to draw upon during poor log markets. This fund currently sits at $619,000. This allows us to continue our maintenance of the Municipal Forest Reserve lands without having to harvest additional volumes to pay these costs.

• The average profit from 1987 to 2010 was $91,342/year, or, $2,192,200 over this 24-year period.

• Established $176,000 in a Forest Legacy fund to pay for special projects, as approved by Council.

• Accessed over $10,000,000 in grants from Federal and Provincial grants to various job creation programs on the Municipal Forest Reserve land base.

• The Forestry program generates 10 to 12 person years of work annually, depending on the activity level of the year. In 2010, we generated 11.6 person pears of work from the Municipal Forest Reserve.

• North Cowichan is responsible for forest firefighting costs to extinguish a wildfire on Municipal lands. To minimize our risk to these costs, we have entered into a cost sharing agreement with the Ministry of Forests.

• Established a firefighting contingency fund to pay for a significant fire, and it now sits with $146,000 in it from profits from the program.

• Accessed Provincial funds of $41,257 for creating a Community Wildfire Protection Plan for North Cowichan, a UBCM pilot forest fuel reduction grant, and an operation fuel reduction project.

• Contributes $26,800 annually to cover some of the administration costs for office space and dealing with our receivables and payables.

• Purchased 26 acres in 1999 and 35 acres in 1995 with profits from the program - $254,760.

• Established a Scholarship & Bursary fund of $40,000 for an annual $1,200 Scholarship and two (2) $600 bursaries.

• The program covers the Forestry staff and support staff for managing 5,000 ha of land.

• The Forestry staff facilitates and supports forestry education through public schools, private schools, and post-secondary schools on forest management and our Community Forest.

• Security and fire patrols.

• Initiating a program for removal of invasive species from the Forest Reserve.

• Manage the Municipal Forest Reserve on a long-term sustainable basis.

In addition to the above, our forests are used for various recreation activities by individuals and community groups:

• hiking

• nature watching

• firewood cutting

• biking

• horseback riding

• harvesting of lesser vegetation

• hang gliding