Silviculture Prescription Guidebook

Describes how to develop a silviculture prescription - a site-specific plan that describes the forest management objectives for an area.

This guide is a technical support document intended to help forestry practitioners collect the information they need to prepare a silvicultural treatment regime and silviculture prescription in accordance with British Columbia Forest Practices Code legislation. It deals primarily with the collection & stratification of site-specific field data. After information on office preparation, stratification, plot establishment, and mapping procedures, the guide presents data collection procedures for silviculture prescription field forms. Copies of forms are included in the appendix. The data cover such matters as site characteristics, understorey & overstorey, soils, riparian & watershed values, soil & fire hazards, silvicultural systems & objectives, harvesting, forest health, stand tending, and forest resource values.

A stand management prescription is a document for describing actions to be carried out on a free-growing site to see that stand management activities are planned and implemented to maintain or enhance site productivity, to ensure that resource values are identified and taken into account, and to set out a series of stand management activities to produce a stand that meets the management objectives. This guide provides a logical sequence of steps on how to prepare and administer a stand management prescription in accordance with the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia. These steps include identification and collection of background information, setting of stand-level resource objectives, conducting fieldwork, preparation of the final prescription, production of the stand management prescription map, and administration.

This guidebook is designed to aid forest workers in choosing a silvicultural system in compliance with the British Columbia Forest Practices Code. It lists and defines the different types of silvicultural systems used in British Columbia, promoting a common terminology for basic definitions and silvicultural system concepts throughout the province. The guide offers a step-by-step decision-making process on how to choose a silvicultural system, and details the factors that forest workers should consider in making this decision. The guide also includes a sample checklist of silvicultural prescription requirements and recommended supporting information, plus an Integrated Silviculture Information System/Major Licensee Silviculture Information System key for silvicultural systems.

Assists in the preparation and administration of SMPs that are required under the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act and the Operational Planning Regulation (OPR).

Provides direction on how to prepare operational plans and prescriptions that require specification of limits for various types of soil disturbance during forestry operations.

This guidebook has been prepared to help forest resource managers plan, prescribe, and implement sound forest practices that comply with the British Columbia Forest Practices Code. The information provided is to help users exercise professional judgment in developing site-specific management strategies and prescriptions to accommodate resource management objectives in the Nelson Forest Region. The first section of the guidebook covers the legislative authority, background, definitions, and procedures for species stocking (including maximum density for conifers), establishment, and free growing. It also includes a listing of relevant sections of the Code. The second section includes criteria tables for regional forest management and information for determination of free growing. The third section contains background and support information, forest health charts, and free growing damage standards.