Crown Land: Indicators and Statistics - Ministry of Forests

4.3 Land Use Policy Direction
Why is this Important?
A primary outcome of strategic land and resource
planning processes is land and resource-management
direction that is approved as government policy but
is not legally established. Frequently SLRP policy
direction is in the form of zones and designations,
which along with their associated goals, objectives
and strategies, are used to identify priorities for the
use and management of Crown land and
resources. Their focus is often on areas of
high ecological or economic value, or
on areas with potential for conflict
between users of the land and
resources.
Key Statistics
All SLRPs have some form of
resource management zones or
designations that identify the
recommended management
direction for a specific area.
These resource management
zones and designations can be
developed for any resource value
or use that is within the scope of
the land use planning process.
For example, the types of resource
management zones that exist for SLRPs
at the regional scale include:
1. General Resource Management Zones: support a
variety of resource uses.
2. Enhanced Resource Management Zones: focus
on intensive resource development, typically
forestry.
3. Agricultural Development and Settlement Reserve
Areas: focus on sensitive ecological, recreational,
or cultural values.
4. Agricultural / Settlement Zones: largely reflect
existing agricultural land reserve (ALR) land and
municipal boundaries.
5. Protected Areas: provide for environmental
protection and recreation use (protected areas
are legally established, and are the focus of
Section 4.6, Provincial Protected Areas).
6. Area-Specific Zones: 53 have general resource
management direction covering all Crown land,
plus additional smaller zones within the plan area
that have objectives and strategies for certain
values beyond those described in general
management direction.
Within the 24 approved SLRPs at
the regional scale, approximately
27.9% of the total area covered
by the plans is allocated to
general resource management,
19.7% to enhanced resource
management, 17.4% to
special management, 14.2%
to protected areas, 54 2.5% to
agricultural development and
settlement reserve areas, and
9.4% to area-specific zoning.
The remainder of the land area
is allocated to: ecosystem-based
management 55 (6.5%); private
land, municipal land and First
Nations reserves (2.2%); and major
river corridors (0.2%).
53 SLRPs utilizing area-specific zoning include the Cassiar-Iskut
Stikine, Morice, and Okanagan-Shuswap LRMPs. A unique
feature of area-specific zoning designations is that they can
overlap each other for different resource values (e.g. water,
wildlife, cultural heritage features); other policy-based zoning
designations in SLRPs are all non-overlapping.
54 This figure also includes protected areas in SLRPs with areaspecific
zoning and ecosystem-based management.
55 Management direction in plan areas with ecosystem-based
management (EBM) is all legalized. SLRPs with ecosystembased
management frameworks include the Coast Land Use
Decision and the Haida Gwaii Strategic Land Use Agreement.
EBM and the establishment of legal direction under the Land
Act are discussed in greater detail in Section 4.4.
Ministry of
Forests, Lands and
Natural Resource Operations
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