The Lower Similkameen Indian Band (LSIB)'s forestry company is one of 18 recipients of $5 million in funding for wood waste and wildfire risk reduction in the Okanagan.
The funding from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) was announced at the BC First Nations Forestry Council in Penticton on April 24 by Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar.
The LSIB's Skul'qalt Forestry is receiving funding to deliver low-value logs that would normally be left behind after harvest in the Keremeos area.
The funding will help promote the utilization of the usually discarded resource to reduce the need to burn wood waste in slash piles and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The other projects selected across the greater Thomspson-Okanagan Region to receive funding will also either boost fibre supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by utilizing uneconomic wood waste or reduce wildfire risk to better protect communities and important infrastructure.
鈥淲e received so many excellent applications from interested parties across the province looking to invest in the future of B.C.鈥檚 forests,鈥� shared Jason Fisher, executive director of FESBC. 鈥淎fter careful review, we are pleased to be able to support a portfolio of projects that will make forests more resilient and communities safer, while unlocking the value of wood waste generated through forest management activities.鈥�
According to a release, the wood waste utilization projects in the Thompson-Okanagan Region are anticipated to repurpose more than 181,000 cubic metres of fibre, equivalent to more than 4,100 truckloads, which will slash more than 24,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and equivalent emissions.
The wildfire risk reduction projects in the region will cover 331 hectares of forest and prescriptions, or planning, for future wildfire risk reduction work on another 508 hectares.
Other recipients in the Okanagan are listed below:
* Yucwmenl煤cwu (Caretakers of the Land) 2007 LLP, who will receive funding for three projects. The first aims to enable the delivery of lower-value wood waste from harvesting operations near Enderby to local facilities in the Okanagan Shuswap; the second to develop a prescription for a wildfire risk reduction treatment in the Monashee Community Forest adjacent to the Village of Lumby; and the third to develop a prescription for a wildfire risk reduction treatment adjacent to the City of Salmon Arm.
* The City of Vernon will receive funding to allow Rider Ventures to continue work on a landscape-level fuel break on the west flank of Predator Ridge and above Okanagan Lake.
* Ntityix Resources LP will receive funding to contribute to the development of a wildfire risk reduction prescription and treatment of approximately 253 hectares in the Westbank First Nation Community Forest, adjacent to the neighbourhood of Glenrosa in West 麻豆精选. Ntityix Resources will also promote the utilization of wood waste from operations where possible, and employ their own local First Nations crews throughout the treatment area.
* The District of Summerland will receive funding to conduct wildfire risk reduction treatment on the western extent of the municipality, and will add to the previously-completed landscape-level fuel break.
* Vermillion Forks Community Forest will receive funding for two projects: One to complete a prescription for a wildfire risk reduction treatment within the wildland-urban interface west of the community of Princeton; and the other to help complete the final phase of work on wildfire risk reduction treatment above the community of Coalmont.
