Old Growth Deferral Information

The information that is provided by the BC Government is hardly usable for most woodlot licensees to gauge the impact of the pending OG deferral policy. Therefore, we have created KMZ files that you can use on Google Earth to analyze the OG deferrals on the woodlot, but also outside of the woodlot. We noted some inconsistencies e.g. that some operable Provincial forest is removed from the assessed area for whatever reason, and that some forest cover data is grossly inaccurate and therefore the selection wrong.

Here is the link to download the files, which will take a while, if you are not on fiber ethernet optics: https://ln5.sync.com/dl/e1ea03320/y8z335be-gjgasdxg-cdfaagiq-wur8534m

The largest files are the VRI files, which we broke down into 6 areas. The attached pdf index map shows which VRI file you should get. Sorry but number 3 is the largest.

First download the files onto your harddrive.

Second open Google Earth and from there  go to File\Open… select the first file and wait! It seems that Google Earth doesn’t do anything, but it loads the data in the background. Eventually the layer will show up in the GE table of contents under “Temporary Places”. Don’t click the checkbox (yet) or zoom around. Load the layers (the VRI file of your area, PriorityDeferral, Recruitment and VI_Woodlots) with the same patience (could take 30 min or more). Once they are all there click the checkbox of the “VI_Woodlots.kmz” layer (only!). Now zoom to your woodlot. Google Earth will only load that data that you have visible to keep the computer responsive. That means, the further you zoom out the more data has to be loaded and the sluggisher your computer gets. Once you have zoomed in to your woodlot area  you can click the check boxes of the other layers and viola, the OG Deferral model shows up.

Interestingly, Google Earth also shows the data record of the polygon that you click on, so you can see the forest cover data. If other polygons are on top, uncheck those layers in order to be able to select the data record.

With this tool it should be possible for each licensee to investigate their area and come up with questions and inconsistencies with their local knowledge. The idea is to collect all those points and forward them to the Federation to promote a better tuned version of the OG deferral strategy. On the local level, licensees might be able to remove stands from the recruitment area, if they can demonstrate that the selection is based on wrong information.