Canadian Forestry) Journal, October, 1919 



395 



FIRE PROTECTION ON CROWN LANDS 



Address b^ Mr. D. Roy Cameron, District Inspector of Dominion Forest Reserves in British 



Coumbia, before the Western Forestry and Conservation Association, 



Portland, Oregon, Oct. 6, 1919. 



How the Dominion Forestry Branch Organizes to Meet the 

 Fire Hazard — The Results 



In addressing an audience of this kind it 

 might be pertinent to explain at the outset what 

 is meant by the term "crown lands." 



In the British Empire all unalienated lands 

 are legally considered as being the property of 

 His Majesty the King. In the case of self- 

 governmg peoples withm the Empire such lands 

 are designated as being lands of His Majesty 

 in the right of the Dominion, Commonwealth, 

 Province, or State as the case may be, and of 

 course the administration and disposition of 

 such lands are entirely under the jurisdiction 

 of the governments concerned. 



In the Dominion of Canada wo have pro- 

 vinces which own their own lands ,and public 

 land provinces in which the Federal government 

 controls the lands; similar to conditions extant 

 as between private and public land states in 

 this country. 



The Dominion Forest Service, with which I 

 am connected, deals with the administration 

 and protection of timber on lands in the right 

 of the Dominion of Canada. The province of 

 British Columbia owns its own lands, but, as 

 a result of the carrying out of one of the terms 

 of Confederation, the province deeded certain 

 lands to the Dominion including a strip twenty 

 miles on each side of the Canadian Pacific 

 Railway known as the Railway Belt, which 

 area comprises the country under my jurisdic- 

 tion. This strip, containing some eleven million 

 acres, is in reality a section right across the 

 province. It contains representative areas of 

 practically all the timber conditions to be found 

 on the northern Pacific slope, including the 

 heavy rain forests of the coast proper, the yellow 

 pine, semi-arid region east of the Coast range, 

 and the secondary rain forests of the eastern 

 ranges, where cedar, hemlock, spruce, and white 

 pine are the principal commercial species. Be- 

 ing the area first settled, due to its relation to 

 the pioneer railway line, it holds the densest 

 population and consequently has perhaps the 

 highest fire risk in the province. 



Being practical-minded men, I presume you 

 will be more interested in a statement of what 

 has bee naccomplished and what remains to be 

 done to insure adequate forest protection, than 

 in a mere statement of the organization of our 

 serice. However, in order that you may have 

 some idea of the nature of our activities it is 

 necessary that I should say -x few words with 

 reference to our organization and the status of 

 the lands with which we have to deal. 



Canadian Timber Lands Not Alienated. 



In the first place the timber lands under Do- 

 minion control, and the same may be said of 

 provincial lands, have not been alienated on 

 disposal of the timber thereon, as has been so 

 frequently the policy in the United States. 



The Dominion procedure has been to issue 

 renewable licenses to cut timber on which the 

 licensee pays a yearly ground rent and a roy- 

 alty per thousand at the time of cutting. On 

 this basis you will see the government retains a 

 direct financial interest in all uncut timber to 

 the amount of the royalty collectable. For this 

 reason the protection of timber lands has re- 

 mained a governmental function, so that we 

 have not the development of private timber 

 protective associations found here. Indeed on 

 Dominion lands, with which alone this paper 

 deals, the government assumes full responsibility 

 and levies an annual charge of half the cost of 

 protection against the timber licensee based on 

 the proportion of his holdings to the total area 

 protected. 



Naturally only the more valuable stands of 

 accessible merch.antable timber have been taken 

 up under license, approximating 11.5 per cent 

 of the total area of forest lands. On the re- 

 mainder the timber is still the property of the 

 Crowm. 



Of the total area of unalienated lands in the 

 Railway Belt approximately 1,760.000 acres 

 or 18 per cent have been set aside as perman- 

 ent forest reserves similar to the national for- 

 ests of the United Stales, and some 720,000 

 acres or 7.4 per cent in addition are established 



