The Boreal Forest
The heart of our wood basket lies in the Kenogami, Lake Nipigon, Big Pic and Pic River Forests, encompassing some 2,100,000 hectares of productive forest stands.
The portion of Ontario Crown Land on which commercial forestry activities takes place is divided into 42 Forest Management Units (FMUs).
Each of these FMUs is managed through the issuance of a Sustainable Forest License (SFL) to one of a number of different types of management organizations (forest industry companies, partnerships, co-operative groups, stakeholder groups, First Nations and in some cases the Province itself).
AVTB sources fibre from 9 of these FMUs directly—our 4 primary supply FMU’s being the Kenogami, Lake Nipigon, Big Pic and Pic River Forests (illustrated below).
AVTB also sources fibre indirectly from other areas, mainly through the purchase of sawmill residual chips.
AVTB does not hold any SFLs themselves and does not directly manage any of the areas from which it sources fibre. The majority of our wood supply is sourced from forests managed by the Province or by co-operative stakeholder management entities. In all cases forest management activities are highly stake-holder inclusive meaning the communities and First Nations, forest industry and other interested groups all have a say in how forest management activities are conducted.
Under this legislation are layers of regulations and manuals that dictate and prescribe the more operational and procedural details of how forest management activities must be planned, conducted and reported.
Under these regulations and manuals is another layer of ‘guidelines’ that recommend and/or prescribe the operational or ‘on-the-ground’ details of how forest management activities must be implemented.
All of these laws, regulations, manuals and guidelines are available online through the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry website (www.mnr.gov.on.ca) by searching or browsing the “publications” section.