The Forest Practices Board says an audit of Kalesnikoff Lumber has found the company generally complied with provincial legislation.
The audit examined harvesting on four cutblocks, maintenance of more than 250 kilometres of road and 13 bridges, planting on 24 cutblocks and ensuring forests are regenerating on more than two dozen cutblocks. These activities were assessed for compliance with the Forest and Range Practices Act, the Wildfire Act, applicable regulations and legal orders.
“While almost all of the audited practices complied with legal requirements, the auditors found that Kalesnikoff did not complete fire hazard assessment reports for three cutblocks and did not update forest cover information in government’s silviculture reporting database for six cutblocks within the timeframes required by the legislation,” Forest Practices Board chair Kevin Kriese said in a news release.
“As these findings did not have any impacts to forest resources, these are considered areas for improvement in the future.”
Since the audit work was completed, Kalesnikoff has submitted the required information to government and improved its internal procedures.
“In this case Kalesnikoff has updated their processes not only to fix the specific examples where we found gaps but also to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Kriese added in an interview.
He said Kalesnikoff was randomly selected for the comprehensive audit, which looks at everything a licensee does over a two-year period. In this case, that included logging some 30,000-odd cubic meters, which he called a “relatively small amount.”
He also said it’s common for licensees to have administrative gaps in their process, and especially so around fire hazard assessment, which require professionals to document a site before abatement begins.
“They were doing a good job of burning the piles, so that’s why this is not a significant non-compliance,” Kriese says. “A lot of people just want to get on with abating the hazard. We’ve said again and again it’s an important step to document it, but it’s quite a common finding. In general this was a good audit.”
The Forest Practices Board board audits forest and range practices on public lands and appropriateness of government enforcement. It can also make recommendations for improvement to practices and legislation.
