UPDATED trail maintenance allowed again

[tomcycle]

UPDATED

Nov 3 2017,

One week after the BC Conservation Service contacted DSBC and proclaimed "no trail maintenance of any kind allowed". They have again contacted DSBC and when brought to her attention the BC Forest Recreation Regulation 20//2006 Section 3. The Conservation Officer "agreed that it was probably OK to do some minor trail maintenance" So once again the general public can keep trails open and safe a Tamihi. The Conservation Officer added "she would clarify with some people and get back to (DSBC) if the results of that clarification was different". I suspect that we will not hear back again, If something changes we will be sure to post up.

Still it bothers me that some bureaucrat has the time to surf here and facebook looking for trouble. I guess its the world we now live in?

For those interested here is the link to the regulation above
http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/.../16_2004#part3



October 27 2017 DualSportBC got a call from the local Chilliwack Conservation Officer.

She advised DSBC that no trail maintenance can be done anywhere (Tamihi) without authorisation, and if we were out there doing any kind of trail work we would be in contravention of the FOREST AND RANGE PRACTICES ACT Section 57 (some of you have heard of this section)

Specifically

57 (1) Unless authorized in writing by the minister or under another enactment, a person must not

(a) construct,
(b) rehabilitate, or
(c) maintain
a trail or other recreation facility on Crown land.

The Conservation Officer Made it clear there were no exceptions, she was made aware that DSBC had been advised by RSTBC in the past had told us that maintenance of existing trails was OK and did not require any authorisation. She make it clear that there were no exceptions and we are not to do any trail work, not so much as remove a face slapper or there will be trouble. DSBC told the Conservation Officer that we believe that we were working within the law, Conservation Officer said unless DSBC could prove otherwise we were going to find ourselves in trouble with the law.

After a lengthy search by the legal department of DSBC we found the following this is also under the Forest and Range Practices Act

FOREST RECREATION REGULATION

Authorization under section 57 of the Act not required

3 (1) For the purposes of section 57 of the Act, the construction, rehabilitation or maintenance of a trail or recreation facility does not include

(a) marking a route with ribbons, cairns or other directional indicators, or
(b) minor clearing of brush, downed trees or repairs to a trail or recreation facility.
(2) Despite section 57 of the Act, a person may construct, rehabilitate or maintain a trail without the authorization of the minister if doing so is the only reasonable means of minimizing a risk to personal safety.​

​

The above Regulation clearly states that the type of maintenance that DSBC and many other Users of the area are doing is acceptable under the Act.

DSBC has contacted our ORV representative BCORMA and they will be contacting RSTBC to discuss this issue further and advise us.

Let's hope that we can keep the trail clear without have to go thru the long arduous process of have to get permission to cut a fallen tree across a trail.


Finally, what brought this on, why the call from the Conservation Officer? Good question.
A Government Bureaucrat has been lurking on the DSBC social media platform, kinda makes you wonder? ....hmmmmmmm

 

[r_jackson]

Well it looks like we're doing some trail braiding boys!

 

[sylvain]

Talking of trails braiding...
The kind of maintenance done by cutting face slapper and downed tree is to avoid that king of bad behavior...
Too often people go around downed tree and that create a really messy trails system.
Hopefully someone saw the damage and wrote the amendment to the first too strict (stupid) rule.

 

[Dan]

Interesting.
Last week on Vedder mountain we found extensive trail building by the mountain bikers, so much so that the dug out a good chunk of road to minimize the drop into their next section of trail, of course creating a dangerous hole for my Jeep wheel to fall into. This was opposite a very nice section of boardwalk they installed recently.

 

[Rustic]

Tom maybe Wendy you and I and a few others can have a chat about this offline. First you are absolutely right and she is wrong. Now BC Conservation officers never used to get into this side of Crown Land uses but they are being tasked more and more to assist with normal Forest Act issues. Remember that most of our Forestry friends have no enforcement powers and that BC Conservation officers have MORE enforcement powers than a police officer.... this also often means they know the specific laws to a lesser extent because they need to know so so many more laws.

it is concerning to me also though that we keep going back to BCORMA because they have not really help at all, we shoukd conti ue the relationship with Rec Officers in our Region.

Let's chat soon, sorry I was highly distracted with things this summer of fires.

 

[tomcycle]

Tom maybe Wendy you and I and a few others can have a chat about this offline. First you are absolutely right and she is wrong. Now BC Conservation officers never used to get into this side of Crown Land uses but they are being tasked more and more to assist with normal Forest Act issues. Remember that most of our Forestry friends have no enforcement powers and that BC Conservation officers have MORE enforcement powers than a police officer.... this also often means they know the specific laws to a lesser extent because they need to know so so many more laws.

it is concerning to me also though that we keep going back to BCORMA because they have not really help at all, we shoukd conti ue the relationship with Rec Officers in our Region.

Let's chat soon, sorry I was highly distracted with things this summer of fires.

Yes we should continue to talk. I suspect that the Conservation Officer was Put-Up to do this by someone (I won't mention names or government agency as I have no hard proof).

I agree that BCORMA has not been of very much help but it is all we have at the moment, so better to keep them in the loop.

 

[tomcycle]

Nov 3 2017,

One week after the BC Conservation Service contacted DSBC and proclaimed "no trail maintenance of any kind allowed". They have again contacted DSBC and when brought to her attention the BC Forest Recreation Regulation 20//2006 Section 3. The Conservation Officer "agreed that it was probably OK to do some minor trail maintenance" So once again the general public can keep trails open and safe a Tamihi. The Conservation Officer added "she would clarify with some people and get back to (DSBC) if the results of that clarification was different". I suspect that we will not hear back again, If something changes we will be sure to post up.

Still it bothers me that some bureaucrat has the time to surf here and facebook looking for trouble. I guess its the world we now live in?

 

[Shuswap]

Not to mention applying her own, quite incorrect, interpretation of the law to impose on others. This type of bureaucrat usually hates to be 'corrected' by an informed populace. Like Chump she likely needs to realize that she doesn't make the law, just enforces it.