The BC Wildfire Federation (BCWF) is calling it a scene of incompetence, destruction, and blatant disregard for the rules in a government-protected area.
According to the organization, unauthorized work by the Ministry of Forests and improper cattle grazing led to environmental damage in the South Okanagan and White Lake Grasslands protected area.
Back in 2020, the organization’s executive director, Jesse Zeman, came across the damage and reported it.
“We were following a wildlife trail on foot and found a road in the protected area on a slope that had no road previously,” said Zeman in a press release.
“There was exposed pipe, garbage, erosion and a number of large trees had been knocked down.”
According to BCWF, the nearby creek crossing had no culvert, which should have been installed during road construction.
Instead, it was jammed with rocks and logs.
“As we walked along, we encountered off-stream watering below the creek and a number of cows were grazing there,” said Zeman.
“The take-home date for cattle is Oct. 31 in the area and this was well into November.”
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Zeman went on to say that they found watering tanks for the cattle that were overflowing, and some recently-installed pipe was already exposed due to erosion.
What they found, Zeman added, could have led to more serious issues in the area.
“There’s issues with erosion, big picture, you could have some issues around land stability or a landslide,” he said.
“You’ve got invasive weeds; you’ve got a whole bunch of habitat destruction. You got a bunch of big trees that were knocked over. So, there’s a lot of things that could happen. None of them are good.”
BC Parks, with which the ministry has a memorandum of understanding over protected areas and was required to go for authorization, said they were unaware of the construction and the violations in the area.
A three-year investigation was launched by the B.C. Forest Practices Board, and a final report was released earlier this month.
“The investigation basically found that the Province of B.C., specifically the Ministry of Forests, had gone in and diverted essentially a waterway or a creek, I think in two occasions had put up a bunch of fences and put in a road putting off stream watering and they had done all of this without any permits,” said Zeman.
“So essentially, the long story short is, the Province of B.C. has rules that everybody else are supposed to follow. And it seems like in this case, the Province of B.C. didn’t follow their own rules.”
The Board found that the Ministry of Forests did not obtain the required authorization to construct 19 kilometres of barbed wire fence and two water diversions which lead to environmental damage.
Moving forward, the organization is calling on the province for answers into how this happened and who should be held accountable.
“Our first question is, you know, is there going to be an investigation in terms of how this came to be? Who’s accountable, how we’re going to deal with it moving forward,” said Zeman.
“I think the overarching challenge here is this is a culture issue. Ministry of Forests has essentially taken a cavalier approach to how or when they’re responsible for, not responsible or didn’t follow the rules.”
In an email statement to Global News, the Ministry of Forests said they are aware of the investigation and plan to review the report.
“I recognize and appreciate the work of the Forest Practices Board. The Province takes concerns about noncompliance seriously,” said B.C.’s Minster of Forests Bruce Ralston in the statment.
“Ministry staff will thoroughly review the Forest Practices Board’s investigation and continue to work with compliance and enforcement officers, local First Nations, BC Parks staff and tenure holders to evaluate grazing management practices and ensure protected areas are not harmed.”
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