Road Access:

Road Access

Today's problems cannot be solved if we still think the way we thought when we created them - Albert Einstein

What are the perspectives on road access? What solutions have been offered up when access leads to pressures from hunting? This section provides some insight into the road access issue, as well as what seems to work well and what doesn’t. You’ll also see pictures, and an interactive map showing the access points in Tembec’s FML.

Listen in on an interview about road access issues…

I met with Vince Keenan on July 15, 2004 to learn about Tembec’s perspective on forestry road access. The conversation began with Vince giving a history of forestry road access on the east side. Listen in on his account of what led to the first access road closures by the forest company in the 1980’s:

“A long time ago we built these mickeymouse little gates and we put them on the road, and the purpose for the gates went back to the fire seasons in the 80’s. When fire hazard gets very high, the Ministry of Conservation says nobody is allowed to go into the forest and what they had to do at that time was actually hire people to sit at these roads 24 hours a day and tell people they couldn’t go in there. So Conservation said to us, look, would you make a whole bunch of these gates, lock them in an open position, and when the minister closes the backcountry we can drive around a lock every gate and therefore we don’t have to have people sit there. So we did that.”

New reasons for reducing access to forestry roads appeared in the 1980’s and 90’s when concerns about increased access to moose, fishing and remote cottaging areas came to the forefront. Now for Tembec to gain approval to build a road, two conditions had to be met: the company was to erect a gate preventing motorized vehicles from traveling along the road and the road would be decommissioned once no longer needed. The Happy Lake Road was the first to meet these conditions. Ensuring the effectiveness of the road closure was a whole other story. Here Vince gives his account:

“So when they first enacted this road closure [at Happy Lake] we put up our typical mickeymouse gate and it was broken into and broken into and they drove over the top of it, anything to get past it. Mostly people wanting to do hunting. So then we built this new heavy duty gate and it keeps most people out. And it is really interesting to watch, when you close a road like this, it’s almost like a game with people…it’s like a call to say I am going to show you I can get past your gate. It is amazing the extent people will go to to get there.”

As Vince’s statement shows, not everyone was happy about the road closures. The conversation soon turned to First Nation perspectives on access restrictions. According to Vince, some First Nations people were not thrilled about the gates because it prevented them from accessing wildlife as part of their treaty rights. The response from Conservation was that they could still hunt there, but needed to take the same routes traditionally taken, not the new logging road route. It becomes clear that new strategies were needed that somehow included a diversity of public views.

The Moose Management Committee was formed around this time, in 1994, to ensure sustainable management of moose and to act as an advisory committee to government and industry on road management, hunting closures, surveys and hunting seasons. The Committee consisted of First Nations, wildlife organizations, environmental groups, trappers, industry and government. By this time, moose populations were beginning to dwindle, particularly in harvested areas. Some thought that the harvest areas were destroying moose habitat causing the moose to leave the area. Others, particularly the forest company, thought the harvest areas provided good moose habitat which made harvested areas popular hunting spots. To address this controversy, the Moose Management Committee set up three trials in 1996 at Happy Lake, Beaver Creek and Ryerson Lake. In the first trial, access was left open but no hunting was allowed (to determine if harvesting cause moose populations to decline); in the second, access was restricted but hunting was allowed in the area (to determine if hunting caused a decline in moose populations) and in the third, access was restricted and no hunting was allowed. The study found that moose populations quickly increased in areas where no hunting was allowed. Vince summarized his view of the findings:

“I think it’s important for the fact that access has been determined as being the main detriment to moose populations. I don’t want to say wildlife populations because moose is primarily hunted on these sites. So we know if we build a road and don’t do any access control the moose populations will decline”.

By 2002, Tembec was not longer harvesting in the Happy Lake area and the Moose Management Committee advocated that the area be opened again to hunting, though continuing with access management strategies.

Although the need for road closures was now based on more solid evidence, the company still encountered diverse perspectives on closures. While the roads were closed to prevent hunters, potential cottagers and fishermen from access remote areas, others such as trappers and wildrice harvesters voiced concern about limited access to their livelihoods. To address such concerns, Tembec began consulting with people at the early stages of planning. Once the operational area was defined, including potential roads, volume of wood and estimated time in the operating area, the company would approach trappers, First Nations, miners and anyone else interested in consulting about road access. Here Vince describes the consultation process:

“And you will talk about things like do we need a gate…and why do we need a gate and should the road be decommissioned and if we are going to decommission the road, now the trapper can’t use it, so what trails does the trapper need to maintain and which one’s don’t you really need. And how does the sequencing work...all those types of things are discussed.”

Vince and I then went on to talk about potential moose management schemes, such as hunting management in First Nation communities as outlined in a later section.

Get the inside story on access control

While Tembec can advocate certain road closures based on community and stakeholder consultations, Manitoba Conservation is ultimately responsible for ordering that the roads be closed, as outlined in the Crown Lands Act and the Wildlife Act.

There are three broad strategies for restricting access on forestry roads. These are:

Access control: closure of a road or restricted access for certain used for a given period of time.

Natural abandonment: natural regeneration of a road when it is not maintained. No steps are made to prevent a vehicle from traveling on the road.

Physical abandonment: render the road unusable by traffic such as gating, ditching, bridge or culvert removal, digging up the road bed, panning seedlings along road bed and using obstacles such as boulders. This is part of road decommissioning.

There are a number of tools available for creating access control; these are outlined in the following table:

Sign	Indicating road is closed to vehicular traffic.
Cable	A flexible steel cable stretched across the road, suspended from either side. It can be locked or lowered to allow passage of permitted vehicles.
Gate	A steel gate locked with a chain across the road and can be unlocked as needed.
Ditch	A hold is dug across the width of the road.
Berm	A mound of earth is lain across the road to prevent traffic.
Boulders	Large rocks are placed across the road to deter traffic.
Bridge removal	A bridge is removed to prevent crossing over a stream or a river.
Culvert removal	A metal pipe and accompanying dirt, gravel and rocks are removed to prevent crossing during winter months.

What works and what doesn’t…

A study undertaken in the Temagami Forest Management Unit by XX reviewed the effectiveness of 21 access control monitored over 10 years. A variety of access controls were used such as signs, cables, gates, bridge removal, ditches and berms. Several access violations were observed throughout the study; for example 94% of 17 sites were violated over a 14 year period. A study of how the violations were made led to the following insights about access control:

1. Location of access control is important. Water crossings that present a natural barrier are more effective than areas where it is easy to circumvent the crossing.

2. Permanent barriers are more effective than moveable barriers. Movable barriers such as cables and gates were often broken and required maintenance. Permanent barriers are more effective, especially natural permanent barriers such as stream crossings.

3. Access controls that combine several strategies are more effective than when just one strategy is used.

4. Signs are not effective access controls.

5. Enforcement is difficult. Better compliance could occur with higher fines, more frequent enforcement and public education regarding the rationale of access restrictions.

6. Multiple routes of entry such as detours defeat the intent of access controls.

7. Incidence of violation appears to be correlated with travel distance and attractiveness of designation.

8. Ditches and berms disintegrate quickly due to erosion.

View Full Study

Access control techniques used by Tembec

View a map of Tembec’s access control points here.

The following table summarizes Tembec’s current access management strategies for four road management areas:

Location	Access management
Rainy Lake	Road decommissioning
Beaver Creek	Gate at Beaver Creek Road no hunting game refuge road decommissioning
Okimaw Lake	Trenches 200m deep road decommissioning
Happy Lake	Gate 3 barricades removal of stream crossings at decommissioning

Happy Lake Access Control

New road with access gate

Access gate

Decommissioning a Road:

Road Decommissioning

V-plow

You mean there is another way?

Time to Reflect: What is your biggest concern when it comes to road access? What changes would you like to see happen to address the issue of road access?