Western Forest Products Ltd. – TFL 25

NEWS RELEASE

Audit Finds Improved Forest Practices by Western Forest Products

VICTORIA – Western Forest Products Ltd. (WFP) has improved its forest practices in Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 25 and is fully compliant with all requirements of the Forest Practices Code for this licence, the Forest Practices Board reported today.

The board conducted an audit of WFP’s activities in TFL 25 with respect to operational planning, timber harvesting, road construction, maintenance and deactivation, silviculture and fire protection practices carried out between Aug. 1, 2002, and Aug. 29, 2003.

The operating area for TFL 25 consists of five distinct geographic areas: southern Vancouver Island, the mainland coast at the head of Loughborough Inlet; mid-Vancouver Island between Port McNeill and Campbell River; the mainland coast between Bella Coola and Prince Rupert; and on Moresby Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands. The TFL is an area-based licence that is 480,865 hectares in size.

“We are pleased to see the improvement in forest practices by this licensee since our previous audit of TFL 25 in 1999,” said board chair Bruce Fraser. “WFP is meeting all its code obligations, including road maintenance and tending of replanted sites even in remote areas that are subject to the harvesting moratorium on the central coast.”

WFP is not harvesting on the central coast while the land-use planning process in that region is underway.

Partially as a result of this audit, the board will now exempt licenses that undergo random board audits from future audits for five years, a change from the current exemption period of three years. This change takes effect as of the 2004 audit season.

The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog, established in 1995, that reports to the public about compliance with the Forest Practices Code and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles under the Forest Practices Code are: