The New Democrats want to know why the Yukon government has restricted access to a woodcutting area inside the Fox Lake burn.

'This may not affect the minister, but there are many Yukon families who cannot afford to pay $200-plus, which is the going rate for a cord of wood,' McIntyre-Takhini MLA John Edzerza told Energy, Mines and Resources Minister Archie Lang during question period in the legislature Wednesday.

'What they can afford is filling a pickup with gas, taking their power saws and working hard enough to get wood for the winter.

'Will the minister tell us if he will instruct the department to open one access road to the public?'

Edzerza told the legislature the government has built eight kilometres of road through the 1998 burn.

Those roads, however, are guarded by locked gates, to which only the commercial cutters have the keys, he said.

Lang told the legislature he was not familiar with the situation described to him by Edzerza, but would find out some answers.

Susan Skaalid, EMR's manager of forest operations, explained this morning the gates are there to control access and ensure minimal impact to the 160-hectare commercial cutblock.

Controlled access was an issue raised during the environmental screening process by the Ta'an Kwach'an Council, which wanted minimal impact on traditional trapping and hunting areas used by its members, she said.

She said there are still large blocks of the Fox Lake burn open to personal-use firewood harvesting.

Since the burn was opened to commercial and personal-use harvesting in 1999, about 1,000 hectares have been identified for cutting, approximately three-quarters of which has been designated for commercial operators, Skaalid said.

She said the 160-ha. cutblock in question is the first commercial block opened by the Yukon government since devolution, when it took over authority for forest management from Ottawa on April 1, 2003.

Under federal management, she said, areas were designated for commercial and personal use, though there were no gates to control access.

Skaalid said the gates ensure the roads are not used when they are soaking wet and susceptible to rutting.

They also prevent increased access to wildlife and wilderness areas that were previously inaccessible by hunters and such.

The gates are also a means of controlling access to what is a temporary-use area that will be returned to its former state when harvesting is complete, and the road network is decommissioned, she said.

Skaalid pointed out in addition to the Fox Lake burn, the forestry branch has 21 other areas in and around Whitehorse identified for personal-use firewood.

The 24 to 28 commercial operators of the gated-section pay the Yukon government a harvesting fee of approximately $2.20 cents a cord.

Three-quarters of the fees collected go toward the cost of opening up the new area.

The cost of the roadwork and gates alone is about $45,000, she said.

One-quarter of the fees, said Skaalid, go back to general government revenue, from which reforestation projects are generally covered.

Skaalid pointed out this past summer's project of replanting white spruce seedlings over 50 ha. at a cost of $20,000 was the first reforestation effort since the area burned 10 years ago.

The reforested area, she said, was one of the first areas opened up to commercial harvesting.