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Backcountry access threatened

Recreational groups oppose government plans for forestry roads There are more than 45,000 kilometres of forestry roads in British Columbia, and for many backcountry explorers and recreational users, they are the arteries that lead into the heart of o
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Recreational groups oppose government plans for forestry roads

There are more than 45,000 kilometres of forestry roads in British Columbia, and for many backcountry explorers and recreational users, they are the arteries that lead into the heart of our renowned wilderness.

With the provincial government facing a budget deficit that could run as high as $5 billion, the Ministry of Forests (MOF) and Land and Water B.C. (formerly B.C. Assets and Lands) have been forced to cut their budgets and look for ways to make their sectors more profitable. As a result of this "Core Review Process," which includes all government ministries, changes are coming to the way that the government maintains forestry roads that some backcountry users believe will amount to the dismantling of B.C.’s outdoor recreational infrastructure.

According to Pat Harrison, the executive director of the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C. the government is preparing to sell off pieces of this infrastructure to the highest bidder.

The government shared its plans with stakeholders at a meeting in Richmond at the end of March, a meeting organized by MOF and LWBC.

The MOF has reduced its budget by $188 million, from $538 million to $300 million. It is also estimated that the MOF’s workforce of 4,000 employees will be reduced to 2,600.

Forest Service Roads (FSRs), which cost the government between $10 million and $20 million to maintain, will no longer be seen as a core function of the ministry.

The options for the 45,000 km in FSRs are as follows:

• 35,000 km to be maintained by industry, and classified as Industrial Roads.

• 1,300 km to be maintained by the MOF as Community Roads because they are essential to First Nations reserves, post offices or schools.

• The remainder, more than 8,000 km will be left to decay as Wilderness Use Roads. The MOF will do annual checks to assess their safety, but will not brush or grade them unless they are needed for forest fires. They will likely be used by people driving four-wheel drive trucks and all-terrain vehicles. If the MOF determines that it is cheaper to pull a culvert than to replace it, then the road will be deactivated.

According to Harrison, LWBC will be in charge of the task of awarding contracts to maintain the Industrial Roads to the public, which would assume the costs and liability of maintaining the FSR, and that would presumably charge the public user fees to access areas.

"In other words, privatization of our public lands to the highest bidder," says Harrison. "One must remember that LWBC is mandated to increase its revenue through sales and leases by 75 per cent this year."

Although the MOF says that none of the roads will be private, gated, or restricted to the public, the highest bidder will be able to charge users. For some of the more popular recreational destinations on Crown Land, the traffic is high enough that it will be worth it for some private companies.

In the current timeline, the government will notify the public that the opportunity to own tenure for FSRs will be available, and the LWBC will begin taking expressions of interest for roads, trails and recreational areas. Decisions will be made in the spring of 2004.

Harrison says the privatization of these roads and areas will only save the government between $5 and $7 million a year.

"After 40 years of hard work by man and many organizations to have access to our lands, all of this hard work is to go down the toilet in the next few months."

In addition, the government is completing a risk assessment on roads and trails for June. If bridges or other structures are deemed unsafe, then trails could be declassified as trails. As a result, they will be open to different uses that were restricted in the past, such as motorized activity.

According to Harrison the changes will affect naturalists, hikers, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, ATV users, horse riders, anglers, hunters and other backcountry users.

The Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C. is attempting to mobilize its 4,000 members against the changes, and is contacting other trail organizations to do the same.

One of the organizations is the non-profit Sea to Sky Trail Society, which has been working for the past decade to connect communities in the Sea to Sky Corridor, from D’Arcy to Squamish, using existing FSRs and trails.

"Our group, like so many others, has worked in co-operation with the Ministry of Forests and with B.C. Parks for a long period," says Ross Kirkwood of the Sea to Sky Trail Society. "In our case we have worked hard for 10 years at cultivating relatoinships of trust and have entered into processes to advance the building of the Sea to Sky Trail. All this work by our group and hundreds of other groups around B.C. is as good as a waste of time."

According to Kirkwood, a large percentage of the Sea to Sky Trail is currently on Crown Land, and falls under the MOF’s protection as a forest service trail.

"In other words, when we go out and do trail work we’re not going to get sued by anybody. Right now we have their legal protection.

"Before, if a forest company wanted to log around a trail, they would have to rebuild the trail again, and now who knows what’s going to happen. Everything is in limbo right now, and nobody knows about this."

Another concern is that logging companies will pay for tenure on the roads they’re using, and close them to the general public for long periods of time. When their logging operations are completed, they might drop the tenure, in which case nobody would pay for maintenance.

"The way it is now, it’s a public trail, which was the intent of it. But how is it going to be a public trail when it’s owned by private enterprise that isn’t given any money by the government?"

The MOF’s changes also don’t take into account the fact that a large number of trails are created and maintained by volunteer labour that would dry up if a trail was privately owned.

"They haven’t even recognized that," says Kirkwood. "They were shocked to hear that people went out, and that that’s where the majority of money that’s spent on trails comes from, from volunteer labour."

For Kirkwood, outdoor recreation is not about money, but about lifestyle.

"Our individual physical and mental well being is improved by trail based activity," he says. "By the provincial government abdicating its responsibility to provide funding for outdoor recreation the effect will be to cut off from us an asset that creates jobs, improves people’s health and is a draw to tourists from around the world."