Prince George, B.C. – The provincial government is moving to streamline compliance and enforcement activities within BC’s natural resource sector.

Effective immediately, changes to the way that the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations' Compliance and Enforcement Branch works with the Environmental Assessment Office will increase co-operation between the two agencies and allow the ministry's Natural Resource Officers to more easily conduct site inspections and investigations.

Specifically, the Compliance and Enforcement Branch's Natural Resource Officers are now authorized to enter and inspect any development project that is subject to review under the Environmental Assessment Act.

The government says that by authorizing inspections of reviewable projects by either Natural Resource Officers or Environmental Assessment Office compliance and enforcement staff, the move gives staff more operational flexibility, uses government resources more effectively, and provides for continuation of the existing harmonization of compliance and enforcement across the natural resource sector.