High Level Stewardship Planning

In 1990 a partnership between wilderness tourism operators in the Cariboo-Chilcotin led the project of establishing a land and resource management plan for the area. The management plan was completed and Big Creek Park in the Chilcotin Ark was created as the outcome.

Following this successful collaboration, a similar process was undertaken to develop management directions for the use of Crown land and resources in the Lillooet Timber Supply Area. The process produced the Lillooet Land Resource Management Plan (LLRMP) which was drawn between 1999 and 2004. BCTMO Conservation Club was the guiding industry representative and major contributor in providing input to the plan and from this, the South Chilcotin Mountains Park was created, adding to the protected areas in the Chilcotin Ark. 

In 2009, the Wilderness Tourism Association (WTA) and Council of Tourism Associations (COTA), with local tourism operators, created a memorandum of understanding with the BC mining industry, for the South Chilcotin Mountain Provincial Park. The purpose was to prove the economic value of tourism in the South Chilcotin Mountains and to show that the highest and best use of the area was for wilderness tourism. Some adjustments were made to the park boundary for the mining industry where mining values were present.

BCTMO Conservation Club’s input on the new management plans has ensured that the Bridge River Valley and Chilcotin Mountains will remain natural and properly managed long into the future.

On the ground stewardship

BCTMO  Conservation Club also invests in stewardship. The stewardship of nature is more than an activity; it is a responsibility which improves our lives. We do important activities like grizzly bear hair DNA research, invasive plant pulling, wildlife winter range habitat improvement and wildlife population counts. Stewardship is woven into every hunt whether ranch or wilderness camp based.

Stewardship is a big part of every activity due to the nature of the business. Stewardship activities range from consultation for other resource users of the territory, policy input, forestry practices, government regulations, and wildlife counts for species in the territory including: grizzly bear, California Bighorn sheep, mountain goat, moose, black bear, mule deer, wolf, cougar, and predator management – as a result, wilderness stewardship is second nature to BCTMO Conservation Club.

To guide all resource management in the Timber Supply Area  we use the principle of achieving maximum wildlife population numbers for the habitat‘s potential carrying capacity, this being the indicator for sustainable land management.

Resource management

BCTMO Conservation Club actively participates in management plans of the area, and undertakes a number of scientific research projects. Areas of resource management that we are involved in are:

• Wildlife Management
• Forestry Management
• Park Management
• Range Management
• Watershed Management