 In 2022, the Ministry of Forest began implementing old-growth deferrals across British Columbia. These deferrals temporarily halt any harvesting of old growth, giving us time to consider long-term solutions. BC Timber Sales is working to implement the deferrals by tracking where they overlay with harvest areas to ensure our most at-risk ecosystems are managed appropriately. These deferrals are reviewed in-depth by forest professionals before they head into the field to verify them. So we're headed that way? And then this will be our first area that we'll hone in on. This is where it's kind of most obvious that this is a different forest type. If a harvest area was developed before the deferrals were passed, foresters must re-engineer the area to exclude the old growth from the harvest area. As you can see pictured, the yellow background is the proposed cut block. Prior to the old growth deferrals being released, BCTS protected the green areas as reserves. The yellow grid is the deferral area. The red is the deferral area that overlaps with the planned block. The trees in the red looked like second growth, but upon field verification, foresters found they met the criteria of old growth. The block was re-engineered by removing the red deferral overlap from the harvesting area and placing it into the reserve. It kind of showed that not all old growth is the same. That's why this field verification process is so important so that we can actually determine what is old and what isn't, regardless of its size or its ecological services. Our trusty increment bore to measure the age of the tree in a less invasive way than a chainsaw. You kind of try to line it up so that you are ensured to hit the middle of the tree and then you start boring. Okay so you can kind of hear that we've hit the center. See if I can get it right the first time. This tree is from what I recall counting about 273 years old. Doing this really paints the picture of what happened in the history of the forest you're in because otherwise some of these trees which were tiny little suppressed understory trees, you know 80 years ago, they released when this was logged and they took off and now they're in the dominant and co-dominant parts of the canopies. We're really glad to be doing this and making sure that we're properly managing our ecosystems. When deferral areas don't contain old growth characteristics it means those areas can be harvested if needed. However, every effort must be made to find a replacement area nearby that does contain old growth characteristics and it must be preserved in its place. It's in a tap polygon but when we field verified it it didn't meet the criteria to actually be considered old growth so that was a deletion of the tap. Type 4 is a replacement area for that deletion. When the high-level data doesn't match what's on the ground foresters find replacements to ensure that we are conserving old growth in the places where it does exist. We're going to use the vertex which uses sound to measure the distance to this device which the other person will use and then we'll measure the angles and it'll do the trigonometry for us, give us the height of the trees. Yeah 41.2 93.5 centimeters. It's an exciting time in forestry there's lots of changes and it can be challenging but I'm really excited to be part of the changes and I'm just really proud of the work we've done. This ecosystem in particular around here is rare so let's get that this is in the deferral area. The old growth deferral process is complex. Identification of old growth isn't always straightforward and requires forest professionals to collect and present high quality data and to make decisions on the latest policy in science. By ensuring that the appropriate areas are temporarily deferred decisions can be made to create a new future for old forests.