SIFCo just obtained another $75 000 to carry on their Wildland Urban Interface Management Program begun in the Spring of 2009. This investment will go towards 10 hectares of Land in the Trozzo Watershed. An area outlined in our mapping process that has very high fire risk and consequence if a fire was to occur. Four jobs will be created for at least three months with these Forest Investment Account Funds.

As a very popular remote local destination, the spectacular Bannock Point gets a lot of yearly traffic & use. In 2009, SIFCo invested $27,500 in improvements to the site. From building new outhouses, to creating designated campsites, and developing safe and low impact parking areas, a total of 7 people worked to make Bannock a safer and more attractive destination.

Following our 2008 Invasive Plant Inventory and our small Pilot Project of the summer 2008, SIFCo just received $135,620 from the Jobs Opportunities Program and the Canadian Action Plan of both the provincial and federal government to do a first of its kind tenure wide Invasive Plants control project. This work will employ seven displaced workers for the next three months.

Today SIFCo received $221,675 from the Jobs Opportunities Program and $25,000 from the Columbia Basin Trust to begin phase #1 of their Wildland-Urban Interface Wildfire Protection Program.

Today the last draft of our Forest Stewardship Plan (FSP) was approved by the Ministry of Forest. The FSP is a planning requirement of forest tenure holders in British Columbia. It is a requirement of the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) and is intended to replace some of the planning requirements of the Forest Practices Code of BC Act.

As part of SIFCo’s Landscape Level Plan a new set of maps was released today. This set of maps titled: “Wildfire-Human Interface using a Permaculture Perspective” intends to highlight the priority for treatment of areas within the Interface areas of SIFCo’s landbase.

Watch a video of a Google Earth ‘virtual fly-over’ of our landbase and see the land that we are managing (high-speed Internet connection may be needed).

After 6 months of work SIFCo completed our Landscape Level Plans (LLP). The LLP is a birds-eye perspective of our landbase. The aim of the LLP is to guide our operations with regards to the overall health of the forest and the communities that surround them.

Today we became tenure holders. After 4 years of work we signed our Probationnary Community Forest Agreement.

Today our updated Management Plan was accepted by the Ministry of Forest… the last step before our application is finally accepted.

In August of 2007, we heard from MOF that our application was accepted in principle…we are now fine tuning our Management Plan and are expecting to sign a PCFA by early October 2007.

On the 12th of January 2007 our final application was mailed to the Ministry of Forest in Kamploops. Thus after three years of work, phase 1 is completed and if all goes according to plan we should be tenure holders by early October of this year.

Today we finalized our negotiations with Springer Creek Forest Products marking the last step before our final application can be submitted.

A few days ago we finalized our negotiation with BCTS and now know what the final landbase for our PCFA will be, hoping to get the final application in the mail by mid-January. Go under location to see a map of the area that we are requesting from Government.