Thanks to Peter Opie for the following information on the work he has been involved with since 2015 as part of Friends of Churn Creek Protective Area Society (FCCPAS) Ecosystem Restoration (ER). As he points out forest encroachment and forest ingrowth has proliferated for roughly 150 years.
This backlog has been a function of the Indian Act and removal of First Nations activities on the landscape combined with fire suppression. The longer time between burning cycles has allowed many larger trees to establish which necessitates mechanical removal of the larger diameter trees before the broad cast burning.
Ten project areas totalling 1,005 hectares have been treated for a total cost of $549,476 dollars or 547 dollars per hectare. In addition, 4,024 hours of volunteer effort has also taken place.
We believe that our encroachment slashing projects are preliminary to broadcast burning to clear slash and conifer regeneration and preparatory to a regular, periodic maintenance burning regime.
To date we have been cutting encroachment proximate to the Grassland Benchmark, line work digitized from earliest air photos. This roughly corresponds to 60-year-old stands. However, the slashing crew has been limited to cutting 12.5-15 cm dbh stems in the absence of certified fallers.
Peter also made me aware of another paper that describes the work being done on the Churn Creek Restoration project.
The Dry Farm Northeast Ecosystem Restoration Project by Jim Young published December 2024 describes how mechanical preparation has also been necessary prior to prescribed burning.
“Recent prescribed burns by BC Parks targeting encroachment have had limited success, in part because low intensity burning alone does not necessarily remove tree encroachment that is more than two metres tall. To increase the likelihood that encroachment is successfully removed, prescribed burns can be
preceded by slashing treatments.
The principal objective of this project was to reduce encroachment and forest ingrowth. This objective was met through treating 231 hectares of encroachment and forest by removing smaller diameter (<17.5 cm dbh) Douglas-fir stems. The project area was stratified into six habitat types based primarily on the dominant height and overall density of encroachment or forest.
Based on results from monitoring plots, total stem densities were reduce from 57 stems per hectare to 0 in the Encroachment Low Open (ELO) habitat type, from 198 stems per hectare to 171 in the Encroachment Tall Open (ETO) habitat type, from 626 stems per hectare to 126 in the Encroachment Moderate Height Moderate Density (EMM) habitat type, from 1100 stems per hectare to 100 in the Encroachment Moderate Height Dense (EMD) habitattype, from 541 to 347 in the Encroachment Tall Moderate Density (ETM) habitat type and from 1519 stems per hectare to 469 in the Forest Tall Dense (FTD) habitat type.”
As the project area falls within the Koster-Grinder mule deer winter range guidelines for restoring Mule Deer habitat were also reviewed. The stand attributes of encroachment habitat types were also a key variable in determining the upper limit of cutting specifications. The work was done from 2019 to 2024 for
a total direct cost of $66,592.
