Kalesnikoff Lumber has passed a random audit conducted by the province’s independent forest watchdog.
The Forest Practices Board 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, according to a news release from the board.
The audit area was part of forest licence A20194, within the Arrow timber supply area portion of the Selkirk Natural Resource District.
The audit was not complaint-driven. The only problems identified were about the timing of the filing of specific paperwork.
“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,” said Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board.
“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, news release states.
“We try to ensure that what we do on the ground meets or exceeds any legislative requirements,” Kalesnikoff’s Dwane Sorenson told the Nelson Star. “So we would have been very surprised if the results are any different than this. The one one opportunity that you could see there was on the backend the paperwork wasn’t as timely as they needed it to be. So that was something that we had to make a bit of an adjustment or a bit of an improvement to.”
The audit area is bounded to the south by the Canada-U.S. border, to the west by the Monashee Mountains and to the east by the Selkirk Mountains. Castlegar is the main community in the area.
The Forest Practices Board is B.C.’s independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices, reporting its findings and recommendations directly to the public and government.
Related: Forest Practice Board to audit Kalesnikoff forest license near Castlegar
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com
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