13 July 2018
Volume 18 Issue 11
Warning: There are no fact warnings for this edition; although there may be facts, or fact residues, present. Some of those facts may contain dates, but not the edible kind.
WFCA Summer Business Summit Will Now Be Held
September 12th; Changed From August.
Some changes in circumstances and some possible conflicts with the end of the summer planting season have made us change the date for our annual summer discussions around the future market for forestry services in B.C. The 2018 WFCA Business and Market Summit will now be held Wednesday 12th September 2019. We had originally announced for mid-August. The one-day session (morning and part of the afternoon) will still take place at the Thompson River University campus student centre. More details to follow. Contractors can register for this free event by contacting our WFCA office at admin@wfca.ca
Should We Be Holding the Bag on Tree Planting Plastic?
For good reasons drinking straws, shopping bags and other single-use plastic products are under assault lately by various levels of governments and the private sector to prohibit their use. These kinds of plastics are egregious pollutants that wind up in oceans, landfills and the food chain eventually. Tree planting makes a contribution to this kind of pollution as well. Recycling the volume of plastic used in packaging seedlings is a hit and miss exercise as anyone who has driven a reefer load’s worth of plastic leftovers to a municipal refuse station knows. So, is there a better way to do this? Can we move away from plastics and return to paper bags? Can the seedling wrappers be made to decompose? Lately we have had requests and concerns along these lines cross our desk. We think it’s likely somewhere out there on the front lines people are solving this. We would like to hear how. And while we are at it, what can be done with boxes?
WFCA Takes On Solving the Water Use
Permitting Process for Temporary Camps
Water is precious and rightly attracts duties and obligations around using it. Cognizant of that the WFCA has approached the BC Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy (MoECCS) to develop policy under the Water Sustainability Act (WSA) that more realistically reflects the actual impacts of temporary forestry work camps water usage. Right now applying for authorizations to temporarily draw water from lakes, rivers and streams is onerous and can take months (target turn around for applications is 140 days). There is little chance our usage, which is low volume and often in remote locations, will affect downstream users. And it is not always known just where a temporary forestry camp may be situated in time to get a water license. In a perfect world there would be a policy for the whole province that didn’t burden contractors, gave clear enforcement guidelines to agencies in charge and protected water and water rights. The status quo is falling short of that according to the reports that cross our desk. Meetings between the WFCA and MoECCS Watershed Sustainability, Water Protection and Sustainability Branch have been set for later this summer.
BCTS Updates Available on Continuous Bid Deposits for
Planting and Contract Tender Feed Back Forms
BCTS is sending out reminders for bidders who opt in to the continuous bid deposit system to do so prior to bidding on planting contracts. The related update is available here. They also appreciate getting constructive comments from bidders on the tender packages they receive on contracts in order to improve their consistency and quality across the province. The enhanced tender quality feedback form can be found with the new contact email address on BCTS contract tenders. Here is a link to a sample form.
Mark Your Calendars Now for the
WFCA 2019 Annual Conference, Trade Show and AGM
January 30th to February 1st, 2019
WFCA 2019 Annual Conference, Trade Show and AGM
January 30th to February 1st, 2019