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In 2011, the Deputy Ministers approved a multi-year plan to harmonize the natural resource sector boundaries and ensure that business computer applications align with the current organizational structure and boundaries.
This priority work will support the Integrated Decision Making and One Land Manager initiatives. A project Team has been working to upgrade corporate business applications, revise the boundaries and make legislative changes to reflect the new organizational units for the ministry.
The first phase of the Administrative Boundaries project is to implement those short term changes that will allow the ministry staff and clients to operate in a more closely aligned manner, while changes occur to the Forest Act, Range Act and other acts and regulations legally recognizing Natural Resource Districts and Natural Resource Regions and Areas.
In order to implement the changes in FLNRO, phase one includes:
- An Order in Council (OIC) to recognize the working names of the 24 districts and 8 regions. This is planned to be in force on June 30, 2014;
- Spatial alignment of the Forests and Lands boundaries. The new boundaries will be released on June 30, 2014;
- A Business computer application upgrade to the 52 corporate business applications will recognize the 24 districts and 8 regions. The Corporate applications will be released on June 30, 2014.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Although the computer applications, the newly aligned boundaries and the map outlining the new districts and regions all refer to the 24 districts and 8 regions as Natural Resource Districts and Natural Resource Regions. It is important to understand that until the Amendments to the Forest Act, the Range Act and any other Acts or Regulations have been passed through the legislature, legally they are still Forest Districts and Forest Regions.
High level Organizational Changes:
- 6 districts will be expired
- 1 new district will be added
- 3 existing regions will be expired
- 8 new regions will be added
- 4 districts will conduct name changes
Please refer to the Current to New Transition Document link below for a high level overview of changes.
As you may be aware, each region and district is assigned a 3-letter code value. To help minimize the number of impacts, any pre-existing district code values will be kept as-is; with the exception of Selkirk District as well as the 8 new regions. A listing of code values can be found in any of the attached documents.
Spatial Alignment
As part of the Administrative Boundaries Project, work has been completed in aligning the FLNRO boundaries including District and Regional Boundaries.
A PDF version of the new line work can be found on the Tenures Branch website at:
https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hth/timber-tenures/administrative-boundary-maps.htm
Business Application Upgrade
The Information Management Branch within the NRS manages the FLNRO region/district code values and names in a centralized database table called ORG_UNIT. This table is utilized by approximately 52 FLNRO business applications (including, FTA, RESULTS, ECAS, HBS, etc). On June 30th, 2014 this table will be updated to reflect the new structure and this will have many downstream affects within the Ministry applications as well as external processes, such as electronic data submissions. The IMB is undergoing a major project to align the affected business applications for the upcoming changes.
Please refer to the TO BE ORG UNIT SPREADSHEET link below for a comprehensive view of what changes will be made to this database table.
What does this all mean to you?
Any FLNRO electronic data submissions where a district or region code is identified may be impacted (specifically where an existing code value is being expired or a new code is added). Please be aware of the upcoming changes and what that means to your submission process. As of June 30th, 2014 any region/district values that are not part of the new FLNRO structure will no longer be accepted in your submissions.
General Questions?
If you have any general questions regarding the project, you can click on the following link, or send email directly to the members of the core project team:
Project Team Contacts
Problems?
If you encounter any issues with your line of business applications (example; system errors, functionality issues relating to new region/district structure, system access issues) please contact the NRS Business Service Desk immediately. Your request will be given a ticket number for further investigation.
Email: nrsenquiries@gov.bc.ca
Phone: 250-952-6801 or 1-866-952-6801
Supplemental documents:
Current to New Transition Document - A high level visual representation of the transition from 3 regions 29 district model into the new 8 region 24 district model.
District and Region Changes Spreadsheet – Another look at the transition from the 3 region 29 District model into the new 8 region 24 district model. Notable changes are in red font.
TO BE ORG UNIT spreadsheet – For more technical folks… A mock-up of what our FLNRO database table (called ORG_UNIT) will look like once the changes are applied on June 30th, 2014. Note that all changes are in red font. ORG UNIT table is the one table in the FLNRO database that contains the district and region code values and names… this table is used internally by many FLNRO applications… the org unit code values are used externally to the FLNRO applications in various ways (such as ESF submissions).
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