Plain-language glossary

The forestry data comes with a lot of jargon. Here is what the main terms mean, in plain language. If a word on the site is unclear, it is probably here.

Cutblock: An area of forest marked for logging, or already logged. The maps show both recorded cutblocks (already logged) and proposed ones.
Forest Operations Map (FOM): The province's public map where logging companies post the blocks they plan to log, with a public comment period. It is where you comment before logging.
Comment period: The window when the public can comment on a proposed FOM block. It is short, often about 30 days, and once it closes you can no longer comment on that block.
Old growth: Forest that has never been industrially logged and has developed old-forest structure. On the coast this is centuries old. The province maps it in the Technical Advisory Panel layers.
Ancient forest: The oldest age class in the province's data, the very oldest old growth.
Priority deferral: In 2021 a provincial Technical Advisory Panel recommended deferring the most at-risk old growth from logging. A deferral is a recommendation, not a law, and not all recommended areas were deferred.
OGMA: Old Growth Management Area: a legally designated area meant to conserve old growth.
RESULTS: The province's database of recorded harvest and reforestation. It is where the history of what has been logged comes from.
VRI: Vegetation Resources Inventory: the province's forest inventory, including stand age, used here to show how old the forest is.
Stumpage: The fee a company pays the province to log public timber. Critics note it is often low relative to the value of the wood.
Records gap: When a block is visible in the public data but the site-level records behind it (permits, prescriptions, assessments) are not public. The records-gap pages help you request them.
FOI: Freedom of Information: a formal request for government records that are not already public. The site drafts these for you.
PSCIS: Provincial Stream Crossing Inventory System: records of where roads cross streams and whether fish can pass. One of the fish layers used here.
Riparian: The streamside zone. Logging too close to it can warm the water and harm fish.
Technical Advisory Panel (TAP): The independent expert panel the province appointed to map BC's most at-risk old growth. Its November 2021 report is where the priority-deferral recommendations, and this site's old-growth layers, come from.
BC Timber Sales (BCTS): The government agency that develops and auctions rights to log public timber. It is both a seller of Crown timber and part of the ministry that regulates logging, a dual role reviewers have repeatedly flagged.
Licensee: The company or organization holding the licence to log an area. During the comment period it is the FOM holder your comment goes to.
Tenure: The licence arrangement that gives a company rights to harvest public timber in an area, such as a forest licence or tree farm licence.
Cutting permit / road permit: The approvals a licensee needs before harvest or road building can start. Under the FOM rules, a permit application that does not match the final FOM must be refused, which is why commenting happens before this stage.
Forest Practices Board: BC's independent forestry watchdog. It audits practices and investigates public complaints, one of the escalation routes if a comment or records request goes nowhere.
Landscape unit: A planning area the province uses for biodiversity objectives. Some findings on this site are located by landscape unit where no named watershed fits.
Opening ID: The RESULTS database's identifier for a harvested opening. It is the key that makes a specific block's history checkable in the province's own records.
Crown land: Public land managed by the province, where most logging in BC happens.
Escapement: The count of salmon that make it back to spawn, the standard measure of how a run is doing.