Crown Land: Indicators and Statistics - Ministry of Forests

Discussion
BC has developed a number of planning and
administrative processes to manage the use of Crown
land. Land-use decisions have tended to favour
multiple uses of Crown land, rather than exclusive
uses. Historically, the province’s development began
with harvesting activities (e.g. furs, timber, range
grazing), and later extended to activities requiring
exclusive use (e.g. intensive agriculture, mining).
Exclusive use areas have tended to be confined to
small areas where specific resources are available
(e.g. arable land, coal and mineral deposits).
At present, the total area allocated to provincial
Crown land tenures and protected areas (105.9
million hectares) is 119% of the total provincial
Crown land base of 88.7 million hectares. This
percentage indicates that many tenures are nonexclusive
and allow for overlapping uses. Exclusive
tenures and protected areas occupy only 16% of the
provincial Crown land base.
Three sectors account for 98% of the total
tenured and protected areas: forestry; tourism and
accommodation; and environment and public
recreation.
Forestry accounts for 69% of the total tenured
and protected areas of the province (based on the
72.8 million hectares designated as Provincial Forest,
which is the area officially managed for forestry
activities by the Province). Largely because of the
mountainous topography throughout much of the
72.8 million hectares of Provincial Forest, the actual
area of forest within this land area is only 53.0 million
hectares, with the balance consisting of a mix of
mainly high altitude shrubs, barrens, lakes, glaciers
Crown Land:
Indicators and
42 Statistics Report
and alpine areas along with some wetlands at lower
altitudes. 35
Commercial forestry within the Provincial Forest is
managed through the allocation of tenures to forest
licensees. Tenure types include a mix of area-based
tenures, amounting to approximately 9 million
hectares, and volume based tenures, which account
for the balance. The area of Crown forest that can be
commercially utilized is much less than the forested
area of 53.0 million hectares because of a range of
forest quality and access issues. The current timber
harvesting land base (the area of economically
harvestable forest) is estimated at 24.5 million
hectares.
Tourism and accommodation makes up 16% of
the total tenured and protected areas (17.3 million
hectares). These tenures are almost completely
non-exclusive. Heli-ski and multi-purpose tenures
dominate the tenured area, followed by helihiking,
guided nature viewing, rock-climbing and
mountaineering. Businesses with these tenures
tend to operate in various locations within their
tenured area, which may vary according to seasonal
conditions, client interests and other factors.
Agriculture and related activities make up just 0.3%
of the tenured and protected areas in the province
(0.4 million hectares), and are predominantly
exclusive tenures.
Energy and mining tenures together make up less
than 0.1% of the tenured and protected areas of the
province and virtually all of these tenures are nonexclusive,
largely due to the high number of energy
production operations, such as wind power, that do
not require exclusive access to operate.
35 The Baseline Thematic Mapping estimated area of forest
is 61.7 million hectares (See Section 2.4, BC Land Use and
Cover); while the The State of the British Columbia’s Forests,
2006 report estimates the area of forest at 59.1 million
hectares. HectaresBC data indicates that of the BTM total area
of forest of 61.7 million hectares, 53.0 million is within the
designated Provincial Forest, 6.6 million hectares are within
National, Provincial and Regional Parks and the balance is in
other areas, (see Additional Information for details on Hectares
BC BTM data).