Sundre Forest Products (SFP) held its annual open house to gain feedback on operations at the mill in Sundre and surrounding area on June 18.
The company's annual operating plan and 20-year Forest Management Plan were discussed with residents.
“The focus in years past has been around our annual operating plan. So basically it's to give the public an opportunity to come in and talk to us and find out more about our plans for harvesting,” Tom Daniels, forestry superintendent at SFP, told the Gazette.
Herbicide and harvesting plans for the year were displayed on maps at the West Country Centre for the duration of the open house.
Officials were asking residents if there are any specific sites they would like to see protected, he said.
The 20-year Forest Management Plan is centred on forest inventory and understanding the age of trees and type of trees that are growing in the area.
The plan covers the 550,000-hectare area in which the company operates.
“That's a higher level strategic plan, and so we're looking for input from stakeholders about what they would like to see as part of the future of the forest,” he said.
Officials held an open house in Rocky Mountain House the previous day.
Four residents attended the open house in Sundre, which Daniels said is higher than usual.
Despite the repetitive low turnout, public consultations are important to the company, and officials will continue to host them, he said.
The company has been conducting open houses since 1994.
“We still think, though the turnout is not great, it's an opportunity for people. And who knows, maybe one year a bunch of people will come in because they have concerns,” he said.
“So we don't measure success by the fact we had few people out. We measure success that we provided an opportunity for people to come forward. And so based on the fact that we get low turnout, we can only surmise that we're hopefully doing good work out there.”
Public consultations are also important to the company because the forest is a public resource, he said.
“It's a public resource. The forest of Alberta in the green area are owned by the public of Alberta,” he said. “We have an agreement with the province to manage the timber within that area, but as part of managing that we need to consult with various stakeholders and certainly the public is a primary stakeholder.”
There is also an advisory committee made up of various representatives from different stakeholders in the community, including hunting, fishing and motorized recreation, he said.
“They give us advice about what they like about our operations, what they don't like, and so on.”
The people who attended this year's open house were more interested in operations at the mill than providing input, he noted.
“It was more just getting a better understanding of where we're going to be active,” he said.
