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• Message from the CEO
• Corporate News
• Aircrane
• Log Harvesting
• Forestry Engineering
• Environmental Mgmt. & Fire
• Mill Works
• Mill Report
• Information Systems
• Fred's Compost Talk
• Calendar

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By Ken Matthews, Forestry ManagerForestry & Engineering

orestry and Engineering have been concentrating on engineering, cruising, and layout of cutting permits in TFL 54 for timber volumes we want to harvest in 2008 and 2009.  Zolie Schafer was given the goal of having 400 000m3 under cutting permit and road permit by the end of September.  It has been a busy summer and we are almost there.

Zolie has submitted cutting permits and road permits for this volume to the Ministry of Forests office. Ministry of Forests staff have been very co-operative in reviewing these applications and working with our timelines. We anticipate getting the permit approvals by the end of the month. We may apply for some additional permits for salvage of windthrow as opportunities arise over the next year.

Our engineering layout work was restricted this year by the controversy with the environmental groups over logging in the undeveloped watersheds in Clayoquot Sound.  The MaMook Coulson Board in conjunction with our First Nations partners, took a decision early this summer to  try to work through the controversy rather than proceed to a head on engagement with the environmental groups.  The decision was based on the fact that any logging protest which interrupted operations at the logging sites or which impacted the ability of the company to sell lumber or logs, could impact the Coulson Group business and the employment levels of its employees in logging and milling.  We needed to try alternative solutions. We continue to work on that.

At the end of the day our engineering program will have the following wood volumes laid out in a split of about 70% conventional and 30 % helicopter yarding.

Stewardson Camp	159 165 m3 of which we have logged about 50 000m3 this summer .
Kennedy Lake	83 869m3  of which we have logged about  35 000m3 this summer.
Cypre River	30 714m3    We have not started logging at Cypre River as yet.
Rankin Cove	67 672 m3  We have not started logging  at Rankin yet .

In these areas, we have additional volume from road permits and salvage which should bring our total volume available to close to 400 000m3.

Providing markets exist for this timber, these volumes should keep our logging and milling operations busy for the remainder of 2008 and most of 2009.  Each of the areas we have engineered and put under cutting permit has different species and grade profiles as well as different logging costs and logistics.  It is now up to Gary to schedule and conduct the logging to keep everything going. In the declining markets we face today, that is a difficult task.

With the timber we need for logging in 2009 ready to go we are turning our efforts back to looking for timber in Cataract and Toquart to begin planning and engineering for 2010 and 2011 harvesting.