On average, trees are planted about 2.9 meters apart in BC, a little tighter up north and a little wider on the coast. Natural regen. is mostly responsible for high density stands. Unfortunately, there is no value placed on wildlife habitat from a planting perspective, the site is viewed as crop. The issue is the requirement for licensees to meet free-growing standards which have been set by MOF..... In other words if there are not 1000 stems per hectare on average over the site the licensee is going to have to spend a bunch more money to make it so. Most licensees plant 1400 stems per hectare to be on the safe side.
We're seeing more drag scarification these days, where they don't plant at all, except maybe in the uglier areas like gullies or steep slopes. This seems to make for pretty thick regen. based on what I've surveyed, but it's much cheaper than planting. One thing planting has going for it is that it shortens rotation times, thus creating more logging jobs. Logging volumes have decreased substantially over most of the interior of the province to make up for the overharvesting that occurred in response to the MPB, so there will be fewer new cutblocks in the coming years.