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Public Notice for Proposal for Excision Alberta Pacific Forest Industries, Inc., Canada April 29, 2015 Introduction The Rainforest Alliance is conducting a forest management and chain of custody certification re-‐
assessments of Alberta Pacific Forest Industries, Inc. (Al-‐Pac) located in northeastern Alberta, Canada. The re-‐assessment will be conducted May 25-‐29, 2015. As a pre-‐requisite to this evaluation, Rainforest Alliance is required to conduct a public notice of excision. FSC-‐Certified Area Summary for 2015 The total area that will be under consideration for FSC certification is 5,916,939 hectares. This includes a proposal for the excision of 22,730 ha for 2015 (since the last audit), representing 0.38% of the Forest Management Agreement (FMA) area. A breakdown of the certified landbase is as follows: Area Type Hectares Certified Area 2014 Area excised since 2014 audit Area disposed since 2014 audit Areas added to FMA • ‘donuts’ • FMU S14 Area added to certificate scope • ‘donut’s Proposed certified area for 2015 5,315,751 22,730 825 624,742 359,705 624,742 5,916,939 Note that not all areas added to the FMA are included in the scope of the certificate. Forest Management Unit (FMU) S14 is not currently included in Al-‐Pac’s forest management planning or HCV assessments and Al-‐Pac has no harvest plans for S14 during the 2015-‐2020 FSC certification period. Therefore, the S14 area is not included in the scope of Al-‐Pac's FSC certificate. The former 'donut holes' which were previously excluded from the certificate will now be included. A map of the area under the scope of certification is included in Figure 1 below. FM-44 – 19Aug13
Figure 1. Al-Pac FMA area (2012 in gray) showing areas to be added (Donuts; single crosshatched) and
removed (S14; double crosshatch) from the scope of our 2015-2020 FSC-certified areas and showing
excision areas (across all years; in red).
Proposal for Excision The proposal for excision covers 22,730 ha for 2015 (since the last audit), representing 0.38% of the FMA area. Excisions from the Al-‐Pac FMA area only apply to lands legally within the FMA area. The excision proposal includes areas (mines, in-‐situ processing facilities and nearby areas) that will exist on the landscape for multiple decades and are now “beyond the full control of the forest managers”. The 2015 excision areas have an anthropogenic footprint associated with in-‐situ bitumen extraction (south of Fort McMurray), or in-‐situ heavy oil (Wabasca area) facilities. A map of the proposed areas for 2015 excision are included in Figure 2 (below). FM-44 – 19Aug13
Figure 2. Current Al-Pac FMA area in grey, excision areas for 2015 (22,730 ha) in pink. Note: Al-Pac will
not be seeking FSC certification for FMU S14 (identified in double crosshatch).
Your Input Sought If you have any comments related to the excision of the areas, please contact Christine Korol, (Rainforest Alliance) or Keith Moore (FSC Lead Assessor, 2015). Rainforest Alliance • Email: [email protected] for Christine Korol • Worldwide Website: www.rainforest-‐alliance.org. • Telephone: 416-‐531-‐0474 • FAX: 1-‐866-‐438-‐1971 Keith Moore • Email: [email protected] FM-44 – 19Aug13