Forestry Update: Whiskey Jack and Kenora Forest
Please see attached for full details.
The Kenora Forest Management plan for 2022 is now in place and will be available to the public on January 27, 2021. It will provide stakeholders with a 30 day window within which to field any questions. See attachment for a detailed look at the Review of Proposed Operations: KenoraForest Management Plan. Also, The Whiskey Jack Management Plan will be released shortly.
LOWDSA director Garth Collier who represents LOWDSA at the forestry meetings with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry provided the following updates.
Logging Updates:
Whiskey Jack Forest:
In the Whiskey Jack Forest, 632 hectares was harvested, 615 of that was regular harvest and then there was some block cleanup on Bug Lake. Six hundred and thirty two hectares is 12% of the annual allowable cut on the Whiskey Jack. The main harvest areas were Witch Bay, Dirty Water, the 105 Highway, and a few blocks off of Highway 804. There was one big block by Ear Falls as well. To date, the Whiskey Jack has had 7% of the planned area harvested, the average harvest block was 67.9ha, the largest area was 215 ha (Ear Falls). Just shy of 74,000 cubic metreswas taken to local mills, 32,000 cubic metres was conifer, 42,000 was hardwood. The largest conifer consumer was Kenora Forest Products and the rest went to Eacom Timber. (This was the year that KFP curtailed operations). The largest hardwood consumer was Weyerhauser. In 2019-2020, all planting was done by TriTree, the entire plant took a little longer than usual. There was a crew of 4 doing all of the planting, so it took about five weeks. As usual, there was no aerial spray.
Kenora Forest:
There was 980ha harvested in the 2019-2020 operating period on the Kenora Forest. 980 ha represents just over ¼ of the allowable annual harvest area. Most of the harvest occurred up the English River Road, just north of Reddit, back in to Cygnet, continued operations on Talbot north of Coker Road, Cameron Lake Road and 2 blocks right off the Shoal Lake Road. The average block size was just over 40 ha, the largest actual block was just about 150 ha. 95,000 cubic metres was harvested, of that 56,000 was conifer, and 39,000 was hardwood. They did a lot more operations in the Kenora area in the winter, after KFP had already ceased operations, so the largest consumer of conifer was Eacom, and Weyerhauser was the largest hardwood consumer. The Kenora planting program was larger. Norway Lake just north of Redditt was planted as well as Malachi, Cameron and White Road. There was no aerial seeding, and 160 ha was reported this year as being left for natural regeneration. This was cut the year previous and they kept an eye on it to see if it would regenerate naturally before reporting it. Four hundred and twenty one hectares of mechanical site prep was done, no tending or herbicide use occurred during this period. This year, 800,000 trees on the KenoraForest were planted. This reflects the cuts done last year.
If you have further questions, feel free to contact one of the planning team members that can be found at the bottom of the attachment cited above.