What is community forestry?

In British Columbia, community forestry is enabled through a special licence called Community Forest Agreement (CFA), whereby rural communities are granted the right and responsibility to manage their surrounding forest resources in a sustainable manner for the benefit of the local community. It is a unique form of license as it empowers forest based communities to determine how they want local forest resources managed, protected and developed. A CFA is a renewable, long term, licence that provides the community with the exclusive right to manage the forest in a specified area. A sustainable annual allowable cut (AAC) is established for the licence area and this limits the amount of timber that can be harvested to ensure that the forest is only cut at the same rate it regrows. Management of the licence is in accordance with the Province’s stringent Forest and Range Practices Act and requires the licensee to carry out the forestry planning needed to conduct logging operations. The licensee is also responsible to ensure that all harvested areas are reforested to Provincial standards.