Cascade NTFP Regional Profile.pdf - First Nations in British ...

Cascades NTFP Profile
Agriculture
The District is perhaps best known in the Province for its cattle industry, an industry
which depends heavily on the leasing of Crown grazing areas. Agricultural production
includes beef, seed, tree fruits, agritourism, vegetable and ginseng production ((Ministry
of Sustainable Resource Management (MSRM) 2004)). Agriculture is limited by the
mountainous terrain, high land prices, irrigation and range leasing opportunities.
Roughly 3% (31,500 ha) of the Lillooet TSA area is in the Agricultural Land Reserve
(ALR), this land is equally distributed between Crown and Private Land (Ministry of
Sustainable Resource Management (MSRM) 2004).
Most ranches in the District include grazing on Crown lands as part of their operations.
According to the District Range Officer, Glen Heyes, the district has a current total of
136 358 AUM (Animal Unit Months) of grazing per year resulting in roughly 30 000
head of cattle grazing on crown lands annually (pers. com 2007). There are currently
102 grazing licences and 25 grazing leases. The conversation with Mr. Heyes illustrated a
number of challenges to the cattle industry, including: poor margins, noxious weeds,
rapid reforestation of logged areas leading to reduced forage production among others.
The current MPB infestation poses both threats and opportunities to ranching; these
include a short-term forage glut in logged pine forests and also the loss of natural barriers
from logging resulting in the need for large investments in the fencing of grazing tenures.
A search of the BC Forest Practices Branch Invasive Alien Plant Program reveals a large
number of recorded weed sites. Common noxious weeds in the District include spotted
knapweed (Centauria biebersteinii), diffuse knapweed (Centauria diffusa) and Dalmatian
toadflax (Linnaria dalmatica); all of these species are known to limit the potential of
agriculture and NTFRs.
Tenure Holders and Management Trends
Within the District there are two main types of tenure for timber resources, replaceable
and non replaceable forest licences, there are no Tree Farm Licences within the District.
Within the Lillooet TSA the licensees are: Teal Cedar Products Ltd., Ainsworth Lumber
Co. Ltd., Lytton Lumber Ltd., and Interwest Timber Ltd. The licensees in the Merritt
TSA are: Ardew Wood Products Ltd., Aspen Planers Ltd, Tolko Industries Ltd.,
Weyerhaeuser Company Ltd., Stuwix Resources Ltd., Nicola Pacific Forest Products
Ltd., Qwa’eet Forest Products Ltd., Princeton Wood Preservers Ltd, Hu’kwa Resoruces
Inc., Princeton & District Community, Upper Nicola Band, Applied Timber Management
Ltd. and G& B Enterprises Ltd (MOFR 2007a; MOFR 2007b). Not included in this list
are a number of non-replaceable licences being developed by First Nations as part of their
Forest and Range Opportunities Agreements.
The District has a single Christmas tree permit tenure, held by Murphy Christmas Tree
Farms. Unlike the low elevation Douglas fir stump culture farms found in the East
Kootenay, this permit is high elevation and subalpine fir is the primary species harvested.