Over 60% of BC’s land area of 98 000 000 ha is
covered with forest, and public ownership of
forestlands exceeds 95% }the highest of any
. major forest jurisdiction see Wilson et al., 1998 .
Until the late 1960s, the BC Forest Service which
. became a Ministry in 1979 was solely responsible
for organizing and financing reforestation activi-
ties on public forestland. With the rapid expan-
sion of harvesting operations, the burden of re-
foresting an increasing area of cut-over sites com-
pelled the Forest Service gradually to release its
reforestation responsibilities to the large, inte-
grated forest companies and to an emerging silvi-
cultural contracting force. As a result of sweeping
policy changes in BC’s forestry sector, full respon-
sibility for post-harvesting regeneration was trans-
ferred to the private sector in 1987 see Wang et
. al., 1998; Wilson et al., 1998, pp. 81 ] 107 .