Prince Albert FMA - Sakaw · 4/28/2015 · Vegetation Inventory (SFVI) format and has been updated...

Prince Albert FMA Forest Estate Modelling Report

April 28, 2015 Project [1062-4]

Prepared for: Sakâw Askiy Management Inc. Suite 201-118 12th St E Prince Albert, SK S6V 1B6 250.953.2020

Prepared by: Forsite Consultants Ltd. 330 – 42nd Street SW PO Box 2079 Salmon Arm, BC V1E 4R1 250.832.3366

Prince Albert FMA April 28, 2015

Forest Estate Modelling Report i

Acknowledgements Forsite would like to thank the following for their knowledge and input while conducting this timber supply analysis:

Michelle Young Meadow Lake OSB Rod Pshebnicki

Kerry McIntyre Doug Braybrook Edgewood Dave Knight

Carrier Ed Kwiatkowski Shawn Meisner

Paul Orser Paper Excellence Robert Follet NorSask Ian MacIver Sakâw Pat Mackasey

Ministry of Environment, Forest Service

Xianhua Kong Phil Loseth Lane Gelhorn Narayan Dhital Mark Doyle Vickie Gauthier

The Forsite staff conducting the analysis and reporting for this analysis included: Cam Brown,

Jeremy Hachey, Cosmin Man, Kat Gunion, Shelley Desautels, and Stephen Smyrl.


Forest Estate Modelling Report ii

Executive Summary This document contains the forest estate methodology and results for the Prince Albert Forest

Management Agreement (PA FMA) area as a part of the 2015-2035 Twenty Year Forest management Plan (FMP). The PA FMA area is approximately 3,349,533 hectares in size, with 44.5% considered non-forested. The net landbase, where commercial forestry is expected to occur, has been estimated at 1,323,142 hectares.

The inventory for the PA FMA was completed by Weyerhaeuser Saskatchewan during the period 1999 to 2005, and submitted to Saskatchewan Environment in 2006. It follows the Saskatchewan Forest Vegetation Inventory (SFVI) format and has been updated for this analysis to reflect changes (harvesting, fires, etc.) to 2015 and to address other issues such as data gaps where past landbase exclusions no longer apply.

The natural stand yield curves, compiled by Timberline in 2008, are based on development types (species1/species2) and occasionally split by stand density or site productivity (12 curves total). Yields were re-compiled in 2014 to reflect updates to utilization standards. Tamarack volume was not included in any yield curves. All curves have a terminal age defined after which they decline at 1% per year until they reach zero volume. During modelling, stands were assumed to ‘die’ once they reached 25% of their peak volume and restart at ages between 20-50 years old to emulate succession patterns and recognizing advanced regeneration. These succession ages were typically between 170-190 years old for hardwoods, and between 180-200 years old for softwoods.

PATCHWORKSTM, a spatially explicit, heuristic based, forest estate model was used to conduct the analysis. The model was run for a 200-year planning horizon split into forty 5-year planning periods. Several management scenarios and sensitivity analyses were explored prior to selecting a Preferred Management Scenario.

The Preferred Management Scenario considered Natural Forest Patterns guidance [9% in-block retention, 15% old seral, interior old seral, harvest event size distribution], deferred harvest in Caribou Habitat Maintenance Zones, and cut-to-length utilization for softwood (tree length for hardwood). This scenario is able to support the current softwood sawlog HVS of 1,265,000m³/year and the current hardwood HVS of 947,000m³/year for 35 years, while the forecasted pulp harvest of 339,000m³/year falls well short of the current HVS of 661,000m³/year (see image below).

Long term harvest rates are lower than short term levels because the suppression of fires has allowed the FMA’s age class distribution to become unnaturally old and thus contain higher volumes per hectare than future managed stands. It is the management intent of the FMP to bring age classes more in line with a landscape that is experiencing a natural fire disturbance regime. The long term harvest levels for softwood may increase as better information is obtained on volumes generated from managed stands (those regenerated after harvesting).


Forest Estate Modelling Report iii

Figure 1 Preferred Scenario HVS.

Numerous sensitivity analysis were completed and indicated that there is sensitivity to extended

rotation ages - having to wait an extra 10 years to harvest second growth stands would reduce the number of years the HVS can be maintained dramatically. Softwood harvest levels could be substantially improved if higher utilization standards are adopted – but much of the additional volume realized would be pulp. Overall, no sensitivities indicated that the current sawlog and hardwood HVS’s could not be maintained for the term of the plan.

The recommended HVS for the 2015-2035 FMP is as follows:

Table 1 Recommended harvest levels for the 2015-2035 FMP 2015-2035 FMP Timeframe

Softwood Harvest (m3/yr)

Hardwood Harvest (m3/yr)

Softwood Pulp Harvest (m3/yr)

2015-2024 1,265,000 947,000 340,000 2025-2034 1,265,000 947,000 340,000


Forest Estate Modelling Report iv

Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................. i Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................................................ vi List of Acronyms ................................................................................................................................................................... vi

1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 2 Study Area ............................................................................................................................................ 1

2.1 Location ....................................................................................................................................................................... 1 2.2 Land Base Definition ................................................................................................................................................... 2 2.3 Current Attributes of the FMA .................................................................................................................................... 4

3 Summary of Modelling Assumptions ..................................................................................................... 6 3.1 Forest Inventory, Growth and Yield, and Harvesting/Silviculture ............................................................................... 6 3.2 Non-Timber Objectives ............................................................................................................................................... 7

4 The LRSY Calculation ............................................................................................................................. 9 5 Candidate Scenario Modelling Results.................................................................................................. 10

5.1 Timber Focused (Baseline) Scenario ......................................................................................................................... 10 5.2 The Natural Forest Patterns Scenario ....................................................................................................................... 14

6 Sensitivity Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 17 6.1 Provincial Full Utilization Scenario ............................................................................................................................ 17 6.2 Higher Pulp ................................................................................................................................................................ 19 6.3 Volume Estimates +/- 10% ........................................................................................................................................ 21 6.4 10 Year Increase in Minimum Harvest Age ............................................................................................................... 24 6.5 Decrease and Increase in Regeneration Delays ........................................................................................................ 25 6.6 Exclusion of High Pulp Stands ................................................................................................................................... 28 6.7 Lower In-Block Retention .......................................................................................................................................... 30 6.8 Softwood Reduction .................................................................................................................................................. 31 6.9 Mixed Stands Regenerate with Less Hardwood Volume .......................................................................................... 32 6.10 Cut-to-Length Utilization (Softwood) ........................................................................................................................ 34 6.11 Short-term Caribou Exclusions .................................................................................................................................. 36 6.12 Managed Stand Yield Gain ........................................................................................................................................ 38 6.13 Summary of Sensitivities ........................................................................................................................................... 39

7 Preferred Scenario Results ................................................................................................................... 40 8 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 47 10 References .......................................................................................................................................... 48 Appendix I – Summary Comparison of Modelled Scenario Assumptions ...................................................... 49 Appendix II Preferred Scenario Detailed Metrics ......................................................................................... 54 Appendix III- Comparisons to Previous Analyses ......................................................................................... 69

10.1 Inventory ................................................................................................................................................................... 69 10.2 Land Base .................................................................................................................................................................. 69 10.3 Growth and Yield ...................................................................................................................................................... 71 10.4 Management Assumptions ....................................................................................................................................... 71 10.5 LRSY Comparisons ..................................................................................................................................................... 72 10.6 Comparison Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 73

Appendix IV – Detailed Modelling Assumptions Document ......................................................................... 74


Forest Estate Modelling Report v

List of Figures Figure 1 Preferred Scenario HVS. ....................................................................................................................................... iii Figure 2 Location and extent of Prince Albert FMA area .................................................................................................... 2 Figure 3 Prince Albert FMA land base Summary ................................................................................................................. 3 Figure 4 Prince Albert FMA Contributing Land Base Overview Map ................................................................................... 4 Figure 5 Species group in the MFLB by land base type ....................................................................................................... 5 Figure 6 Current age class distribution of the MFLB by land base type .............................................................................. 5 Figure 7 Site index distribution in the MFLB by land base type .......................................................................................... 6 Figure 8 Management Units used for managing old forest ................................................................................................ 8 Figure 9 Harvest flow by product for Timber Focused non-declining (solid line), highest initial (dashed line) scenarios. 11 Figure 10 Succession on the THLB from Timber Focused NDY (solid), highest initial (dashed). .......................................... 11 Figure 11 Total growing stock from timber focused NDY (solid) and high initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes. .............. 12 Figure 12 Merchantable growing stock from timber focused NDY (solid) and high initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes. 12 Figure 13 Average harvest age for timber focused NDY (Solid) and high initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes. ............... 13 Figure 14 Average harvest volume for timber focused NDY (Solid) and high Initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes. ......... 13 Figure 15 Age class distribution on the net landbase at 0, 50, 100, and 200 years for the timber focused scenario. ........ 14 Figure 16 NFP Scenario - Harvest volume schedule by product. ......................................................................................... 15 Figure 17 NFP Scenario - Growing stock by product on the net landbase .......................................................................... 16 Figure 18 NFP Scenario - Merchantable growing stock by cover type on the net landbase. .............................................. 16 Figure 19 HVS comparison between NFP and 2008 Provincial Utilization. ......................................................................... 19 Figure 20 Growing stock comparison between NFP and 2008 Provincial Utilization. ......................................................... 19 Figure 21 Change in contribution between the base case and sensitivity scenario for YG 13. ........................................... 21 Figure 22 HVS comparison of NFP scenario and higher pulp scenario ................................................................................ 21 Figure 23 HVS comparison of NFP scenario and 10% increased yields scenario. ................................................................ 22 Figure 24 Growing stock comparison between NFP scenario and 10% increased yields scenario. .................................... 23 Figure 25 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and 10% decreased yields. .................................................................. 23 Figure 26 Growing stock comparison between NFP scenario and scenario with 10% decreased yields. ........................... 24 Figure 27 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and MHA +10 years. ............................................................................ 25 Figure 28 Average harvest age comparison between NFP and MHA +10 years. ................................................................ 25 Figure 29 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and increase in Regen delay. ............................................................... 26 Figure 30 Growing stock comparison between NFP Scenario and Increase in regen delay. ............................................... 27 Figure 31 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and decrease in regeneration delay. ................................................... 27 Figure 32 Growing stock comparison between NFP Scenario and decreased regeneration delay. .................................... 28 Figure 33 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and scenario with exclusion of high pulp stands. ................................ 29 Figure 34 Growing stock comparison between NFP and exclusion of high pulp stands scenarios. .................................... 29 Figure 35 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and 4.5% in block retention. ............................................................... 30 Figure 36 Growing stock comparison between NFP and 4.5% in-block retention scenario. ............................................... 30 Figure 37 Softwood contribution to yield volumes for NFP and 'less softwood' scenarios using YG1. ............................... 31 Figure 38 HVS comparison between NFP and softwood reduction scenario. ..................................................................... 32 Figure 39 Growing stock comparison between NFP and softwood reduction scenario. .................................................... 32 Figure 40 HVS comparison between NFP and increased softwood scenarios. ................................................................... 33 Figure 41 Growing stock comparison between NFP and increased softwood scenarios. ................................................... 34 Figure 42 Example bucking based on rigid 5m log lengths to a 10cm top. ......................................................................... 34 Figure 43 HVS comparison between NFP and cut to length scenarios. .............................................................................. 35 Figure 44 Growing stock comparison between HVS and cut to length scenarios. ............................................................. 36 Figure 45 Caribou Maintenance Zones ............................................................................................................................... 37 Figure 46 HVS comparison between NFP and Caribou exclusion scenarios. ....................................................................... 37 Figure 47 HVS comparison between managed stand yield gain and NFP. .......................................................................... 38 Figure 48 Preferred Scenario – Harvest volume schedule by product. ............................................................................... 41 Figure 49 Preferred Scenario - Annual Incidental Harvest Volume by product. ................................................................. 41 Figure 50 Preferred Scenario – Growing stock by product on the net land base. ............................................................... 42 Figure 51 Preferred Scenario -merchantable growing stock on the net land base. ............................................................ 42 Figure 52 Preferred Scenario - Annual harvest area by stand types (200-year average %’s) .............................................. 43 Figure 53 Preferred Scenario - Average harvest age by stand types .................................................................................. 43 Figure 54 Preferred Scenario - Area harvested by age class .............................................................................................. 44 Figure 55 Preferred Scenario - Average harvest volume by stand types ........................................................................... 44 Figure 56 Preferred Scenario – Piece Size by stand type .................................................................................................... 45 Figure 57 Preferred Scenario - Area undergoing succession over time by stand type. ....................................................... 45


Forest Estate Modelling Report vi

Figure 58 Preferred Scenario - Age class distribution by land base type at year 0, 50, 100, and 200. ................................ 46 Figure 59 PA FMA – Area comparison for key land base components between 1999 FMP and 2014. ............................... 69

List of Tables Table 1 Recommended harvest levels for the 2015-2035 FMP ........................................................................................ iii Table 2 Land Base Area Netdown Summary ...................................................................................................................... 3 Table 3 Treatment availability by analysis unit .................................................................................................................. 7 Table 4 Old Forest Management Unit area summaries ..................................................................................................... 8 Table 5 LRSY Calculated with PA FMA Yield Curves and Utilization Standards. ................................................................. 9 Table 6 Timber Focused Scenarios - Key Variable Descriptions. ...................................................................................... 10 Table 7 Natural Forest Patterns Scenario - Key Variables Description............................................................................. 14 Table 8 Sensitivity analysis for Provincial Full Utilization Scenario - key variables description ....................................... 17 Table 9 Percentage of small sawlog per yield group transferred to pulp for the higher pulp sensitivity ........................ 20 Table 10 Sensitivity analysis for +/- 10% Volume scenario - key variables description ..................................................... 22 Table 11 Sensitivity analysis for Increase in minimum harvest age scenario - key variables description .......................... 24 Table 12 Regeneration age change by yield group for the decrease and increase in regeneration delay sensitivity ........ 26 Table 13 Area contribution of different yield group reductions on the net landbase. ...................................................... 31 Table 14 Summary of yield adjustment for the mixed stands regenerate with less hardwood volume sensitivity ........... 33 Table 15 Net Area covered by proposed caribou maintenance areas ............................................................................... 36 Table 16 Synopsis of sensitivities. ...................................................................................................................................... 39 Table 17 The Preferred Scenario - Key Variables Description ............................................................................................ 40 Table 18 Recommended harvest levels for the 2015-2035 FMP. ...................................................................................... 47 Table 19 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario - Old Seral target controls by NFP unit and species group. 54 Table 20 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario - Interior Old Forest Habitat ....................................... 60 Table 21 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario - Caribou Habitat ........................................................ 61 Table 22 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario – Fisher Habitat .......................................................... 63 Table 23 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario – Moose Browse Habitat ............................................ 65 Table 24 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario – Moose Cover Habitat ............................................... 67 Table 25 PA FMA - Comparing operability windows and breakup ages between the 1999 FMP and 2015. ..................... 71 Table 26 LRSY calculation using the two sets of yield curves (1999 FMP vs. 2015 analysis). ............................................. 73 Table 27 Summary of the relative influence each analysis aspect has on the 2015 HVS ................................................... 73

List of Acronyms AU Analysis Unit CSG Cover Species Group FMA Forest Management Agreement FMP Forest Management Plan FMPD Forest Management Planning Document FMZ Forest Management Zone GIS Geographical Information System HVS Harvest Volume Schedule HWD Hardwoods LRSY Long Run Sustainable Yield M Million PA FMA Prince Albert FMA PFLB Productive Forest Land Base

PFLB Productive Forest Land Base PFT Provincial Forest Type PFT Provincial Forest Types PA Prince Albert RAN Representative Area Network SFVI Saskatchewan Forest Vegetation Inventory SWD Softwoods THLB Timber Harvesting Land Base TSP Temporary Sample Plots WFVI Weyerhaeuser Forest Vegetation Inventory AU Analysis Unit CSG Cover Species Group


Forest Estate Modelling Report P a g e | 1

1 Introduction This document describes the forest estate modelling conducted for the Prince Albert Forest

Management Agreement (PA FMA) as part of the 2015-2035 Twenty Year Forest Management Plan (FMP). A full description of the study area, the work conducted to prepare the data, and the assumptions used in the model are detailed in two complementary documents; (1) Volume I Background Information for PA FMA Twenty-Year Forest Management Plan (August 2009) and (2) Forest Estate Modelling Assumptions (FEMA) prepared by Forsite and reproduced in Appendix IV.

Forest estate modelling is employed to assess timber supply and forecast forest related indicators over time. Determining a sustainable timber supply involves consideration of a wide range of physical, biological, social, and economic factors that can influence the acceptable rate of timber harvesting within a management unit. The factors encompass both the timber and non-timber values found in forests, and ensure that timber harvesting objectives are balanced with the non-timber objectives (concerns for wildlife, biodiversity, recreational opportunities, etc.).

The forest estate modelling documented here explores several management strategies (candidate scenarios) and associated sustainable rates of harvest over a 200-year planning horizon while considering both timber and non-timber objectives. Through consultations with the forest management planning team and the public advisory group, the management strategy that best fit the desired outcomes was selected as the preferred scenario for the 2015-2035 FMP. This scenario will be used to develop the 20-year tactical plan that guides development foresters in preparing their annual operating plans during the term of the plan, and will assure consistency with the modeled forecast. The detailed tactical plan is provided in a separate submission.

2 Study Area

2.1 Location

The Prince Albert Forest FMA area (PAFMA) is approximately 3.35 million hectares in north-central Saskatchewan’s boreal forest, north of the city of Prince Albert (Figure 2).



Figure 2 Location and extent of Prince Albert FMA area

2.2 Land Base Definition

This section describes the assumptions used to support land base definitions. Four key land base definitions are made:

1. Total FMA Area: the gross area within the legal FMA boundaries. 2. Productive Forest Land Base (PFLB): the subset of the total area that is crown forested land. It

is defined by removing all Permanent Exclusions from the gross FMA area. 3. Managed Forest Land Base (MFLB): the subset of the PFLB that is allowed to contribute toward

meeting both timber and non-timber values. It consists of all Partial Exclusion areas and the Net land base as defined in the FMPD Appendix 6, section 13.2.4.

4. Net Area: the subset of the MFLB where harvesting has or could occur in the future. The Net Area excludes areas that are inoperable, uneconomic, or are otherwise off-limits to timber harvesting.

The land base summary is shown in Table 2, Figure 3, and in Figure 4.



Table 2 Land Base Area Netdown Summary

Land Base element Total Area (ha)

Effective Area (ha)*

% Total Area % MFLB

Total Crown area (PA FMA) 3,349,533 3,349,533 Less: Non FMA Lands (IR, VILNC, Patent Lands, Misc. leases) 49,569 49,569 1.5% Dispositions (Buffered and Non-Buffered) 16,116 14,279 0.4% Treaty Land Entitlements 3,588 3,579 0.1% Non Forest / Non Productive Forest 1,527,837 1,492,202 44.5% Roads, Rail, Utilities Corridors 1,626 1,207 0.0% Productive Forest Land Base (PFLB) 1,788,697 53.4% Less: Reserved Forest (RAN, Weyco Release, Rec Areas, Prov Parks) 131,223 84,790 2.5% Managed Forest land Base (MFLB) 1,703,907 50.9% 100.0% Less:

Subjective Leave Areas Around Developments 1,587 816 0.0% 0.0% Steep Slopes 7,246 3,923 0.1% 0.2% Non-Commercial - Low Density 49,734 46,692 1.4% 2.7% Non-Commercial - Problem Types 18,413 8,711 0.3% 0.5% Non-Commercial - "Larchy" 146,307 120,750 3.6% 7.1% Non-Commercial - Low Site Productivity 96,035 48,988 1.5% 2.9% Isolated Areas (Uneconomic) 6,121 6,121 0.2% 0.4%

Spatial Net Area 1,467,907 43.8% 86.1% Less Non Spatial Netdowns: Riparian (lakes, rivers, streams) 53,643 12,663 0.4% 0.7%

Stand Level Retention (Insular – 9% gross , 4% net impact) 132,112 3.9% 7.8% Effective Net Area 1,323,142 39.5% 77.7% Less Future Non-Spatial Netdowns: Future permanent roads (0.62% of Net Area) 11,000 8,800 0.3% 0.5% Effective Future Net Area 1,314,342 39.2% 77.1% *Effective netdown area represents the area that was actually removed as a result of a given factor. Removals are applied in the order shown above, thus areas removed lower on the list do not contain areas that overlap with factors that occur higher on the list. For example, lake buffers netdown does not include non-forested area.

Figure 3 Prince Albert FMA land base Summary



Figure 4 Prince Albert FMA Contributing Land Base Overview Map

2.3 Current Attributes of the FMA

Descriptive statistics for the FMA are presented in this section in order to understand the current state of the FMA and provide context to the forest estate modelling results. Approximately 53% of the total area of the PA FMA is productive forest (Table 2) while the other 47% of the land base is non-productive (e.g. water bodies, flooded lands, pastures, muskeg) or Non-FMA (e.g. First Nations Reserves, Private land, etc.). Approximately 82% of the MFLB, or 42% of the total FMA area, is available for timber harvesting..

Within the net area, 56% is occupied by softwood dominated stands (30%-BSJ&BSL, 23%-JLP, 4%-WSF), 27% by hardwood dominated stands, and 17% by mixedwood stands (Figure 5).



Figure 5 Species group in the MFLB by land base type

The majority of the land base is comprised of age classes younger than 50 years or between 80 and

140 years (Figure 6). The significant areas of older age classes suggests that natural disturbance patterns have been suppressed, leading to landscapes that are generally older than what they would be without fire suppression. Detailed statistics for management unit, species group, and seral area distribution are included in the Appendix of the Modeling Assumptions document (Appendix IV).

Figure 6 Current age class distribution of the MFLB by land base type

This site index distribution of the net landbase is shown in Figure 7. The weighted average site index

is 14.2m. All stands with site index below 7 were excluded from the net land base.



Figure 7 Site index distribution in the MFLB by land base type

3 Summary of Modelling Assumptions This section provides a summary of the key modelling assumptions. Full details can be found in

Appendix IV (Forest Estate Modelling Assumptions). The PATCHWORKSTM (www.spatial.ca) forest estate model was used in the analysis. It is a spatially

explicit model that employs computational heuristics to find solutions. The model was run for a 200-year planning horizon split into forty 5-year planning periods. The approved planning inventory (GIS resultant file) for the FMA was used to create blocks, which are the base unit in Patchworks. Blocks contained common age stands of the same development type. Full details around development of the planning inventory file are found in the modeling assumptions document.

3.1 Forest Inventory, Growth and Yield, and Harvesting/Silviculture

Current Annual Operating Plan (AOP) blocks were prioritized for harvest in the first decade of the plan. This aligns current planning with the modeling outputs that will inform the tactical plan.

The inventory for the PA FMA was completed by Weyerhaeuser Saskatchewan from 1999 to 2005, and submitted to Saskatchewan Environment in 2006. It follows the new Saskatchewan Forest Vegetation Inventory (SFVI) format. The inventory has been updated for the purpose of the 2015-2035 FMP to reflect changes (harvesting, fires, etc.) ad to address other issues such as data gaps where exclusions areas had changed.

Natural stand yield curves were compiled by Timberline in 2008 from ~6500 temporary sample plots stratified into 10 development types (species combinations) further split by either stand density or site productivity or geographic zone. Yields were re-compiled in 2014 using the same plot data to reflect different harvesting practices - and changes to the merchandizing assumptions occurred that altered the softwood pulp/sawlog distribution. The same 10 development types were used to produce 19 yield groups that reflected differences in density or site productivity or geographic zone (Table 3). Tamarack

http://www.spatial.ca/



volume continued to not be included in any yield curves and all stands with >30% TL were fully excluded from the landbase.

All curves reach a terminal age and then all but pure black spruce stands decline at 1% per year until reaching zero volume. During modelling, stands were assumed to die after declining to 25% of their peak volume and restart at ages between 20-50 years old to emulate succession patterns and recognizing advanced regeneration (BS stands assumed to restart at 200 years old). For hardwoods, succession occurred between 170-190 years old, and for softwoods between 180-200 years old.

Silviculture treatments were predominantly clearcut with retention. Stands were regenerated back to the same natural stand yield curve (no shifting of stand types, no managed stand yield gains) but subsequent harvests did have a 0.62% yield reduction to reflect area lost to permanent roads. A summary of the modeled Analysis Units (AUs), their operability windows, and regeneration delays can be found in Appendix IV – Detailed Modelling Assumptions Document. Additional AU numbering was used during modelling to differentiate existing natural, existing managed, and future stands for purposes of tracking/reporting.

Table 3 Treatment availability by analysis unit

Existing Stands

Treatment+

Future Stands

AU Description Yield Group

Min. Harvest

Age

Max. Harvest

Age

% of Harvested

Area AU Initial

Age

101 1_H_HW_Density_B 1 45 145 CC-LFN 100 101 0 102 1_H_HW_Density_CD 2 50 145 CC-LFN 100 102 0 103 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 3 60 150 CC-LFN 100 103 0 104 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 4 65 150 CC-LFN 100 104 0 105 3_SH_jPH_Density_B 5 60 150 CC-SCARIFY 100 105 -1 106 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD 6 65 150 CC-SCARIFY 100 106 -1 107 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 7 75 160 CC-LFN 100 107 0 108 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 8 80 165 CC-LFN 100 108 0 109 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 9 75 185 CC-LFN 100 109 0 110 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 10 80 190 CC-LFN 100 110 0 111 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor 11 65 200 CC-PLANT 100 111 -1 112 6_S_bS_SiteGood 12 65 200 CC-PLANT 100 112 -1 113 7_S_jP_SitePoor 13 70 120 CC-SCARIFY 100 113 -1 114 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod 14 55 155 CC-SCARIFY 100 114 -1 115 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor 15 80 145 CC-SCARIFY 100 115 -1 116 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod 16 60 180 CC-SCARIFY 100 116 -1 117 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 17 65 190 CC-PLANT 100 117 -1 118 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 18 65 185 CC-PLANT 100 118 -1 119 10_S_tL_11to30pct 19 60 100 CC-PLANT 100 119 -1

+ LFN = Leave For Naturals

Endemic losses from pest and disease are reflected in the yield curves. No recognition of catastrophic losses (wind throw, fire) is included in the analysis. Fire losses were not modeled in favour of using a disturbance threshold which would trigger a reassessment of timber supply.

3.2 Non-Timber Objectives

In-block retention of areas representative of those being harvested was modeled at 9%. This is implemented as an aspaital area netdown within each block. This allowed the retained areas to contribute toward old and very old seral requirements.

Old seral and very old seral stands were maintained on the land base within eleven geographic management units (MU’s – see Figure 8) and within five stand types (H, HS/SH, bS, wS, Jp) for a total of



55 independent targets. A minimum of 15% of the MFLB in each MU/stand type had to be old or very old seral, and 5% had to be very old seral. A subset of the old/very old stands provided ‘interior’ conditions (i.e. away from stand edge influences). A minimum target of 20% old interior habitat was applied, during modeling, for the first 20 years.

Figure 8 Management Units used for managing old forest

Table 4 Old Forest Management Unit area summaries Management Unit

Species Group

MFLB (Ha)

Management Unit

Species Group

MFLB (Ha)

Management Unit

Species Group

MFLB (Ha)

CLP_WU

H 80,939

MLP_ELU

H 31,716

WASK_U

H 17,578 HS-SH 42,639

HS-SH 21,625

HS-SH 19,210

S(JLP) 14,156

S(JLP) 25,102

S(JLP) 35,931 S(BSJ+BSL) 64,617

S(BSJ+BSL) 47,016

S(BSJ+BSL) 68,006

S(WSF) 13,012

S(WSF) 3,861

S(WSF) 3,332 Sub-Total 215,363

Sub-Total 129,321

Sub-Total 144,057

LH_SCP_TU_SR

H 122,131

MLP_SP_LPP_DLL

H 39,032

WGP_MRP

H 24,214 HS-SH 26,207

HS-SH 35,974

HS-SH 11,543

S(JLP) 18,084

S(JLP) 20,665

S(JLP) 42,467 S(BSJ+BSL) 28,375

S(BSJ+BSL) 64,122

S(BSJ+BSL) 45,564

S(WSF) 10,236

S(WSF) 10,280


Sub-Total 170,073

Sub-Total 126,986

LRL_North

H 17,662

SP

H 3,310

WP

H 25,287 HS-SH 20,533

HS-SH 4,248

HS-SH 29,879

S(JLP) 39,808

S(JLP) 17,886

S(JLP) 62,328 S(BSJ+BSL) 61,916

S(BSJ+BSL) 29,003

S(BSJ+BSL) 100,306

S(WSF) 2,566

S(WSF) 789


Sub-Total 55,236

Sub-Total 222,261

LRL_South

H 17,702

WAPA_U

H 27,045

Grand Total 1,703,907 HS-SH 16,844

HS-SH 26,829

S(JLP) 47,672

S(JLP) 44,223 S(BSJ+BSL) 43,305

S(BSJ+BSL) 63,783

S(WSF) 3,514


Sub-Total 164,056



4 The LRSY Calculation The long run sustained yield (LRSY) was calculated by determining, for each yield group (YG), the

product of its maximum Mean Annual Increment (CMAI) and its net area (Table 5). For hardwood stands (YG 1&2), the reference year was based on maximum hardwood CMAI, for mixed-wood stands, the reference year was based on the total increment (YG curves 3-10), and for softwood stands (YG curves 11-19) it was based on the softwood increment.

Table 5 LRSY Calculated with PA FMA Yield Curves and Utilization Standards.

Yield Group Description CMAI

AGE HWD MAI

SWD MAI Area (ha)

Hwd VOL

(m³/yr)

Swd Pulp Vol

(m³/yr)

Swd Sawlog

vol (m³/yr)

Total VOL (m³/yr)

1 1_H_HW_Density_B 50 1.373 0.358 84,293 115,702 10,328 19,861 145,891

2 1_H_HW_Density_CD 55 2.115 0.368 266,578 563,938 15,938 82,196 662,072

3 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 80 0.685 0.678 24,466 16,761 2,098 14,481 33,340

4 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 85 1.120 1.242 24,122 27,014 7,562 22,392 56,968

5 3_SH_jPH_Density_B 80 0.477 0.886 20,475 9,770 3,805 14,326 27,902

6 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD 85 0.750 1.612 16,430 12,314 7,448 19,039 38,801

7 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 95 0.482 1.073 23,475 11,318 3,494 21,694 36,507

8 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 100 1.300 0.976 66,960 87,066 7,965 57,420 152,451

9 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 95 0.553 1.003 12,829 7,088 1,680 11,183 19,951

10 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 100 0.859 1.418 33,533 28,793 6,110 41,442 76,346

11 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor 85 0.081 0.938 153,132 12,427 36,561 107,072 156,060

12 6_S_bS_SiteGood 90 0.093 1.324 76,719 7,162 21,207 80,351 108,719

13 7_S_jP_SitePoor 55 0.053 0.869 79,374 4,229 23,520 45,300 73,050

14 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod 65 0.114 1.915 190,174 21,602 111,142 253,126 385,871

15 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor 70 0.005 0.766 26,125 138 4,562 15,381 20,080

16 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod 80 0.126 1.398 144,110 18,184 52,602 148,644 219,430

17 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 70 0.279 1.907 17,076 4,767 6,777 24,802 36,347

18 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 70 0.244 1.959 30,433 7,436 6,926 50,980 65,342

19 10_S_tL_11to30pct 50 0.325 0.937 32,838 10,677 5,593 24,898 41,167

Total 1,323,142 966,388 335,318 1,054,588 2,356,295 Note: Total increment for mixed stands is the sum of the softwood and hardwood increments.

This LRSY calculation suggests that the theoretical maximum long term harvest level for this landbase would be 966,388 m3/yr for hardwood, 1,054,588 m3/yr for softwood sawlogs, and 335,318 m3/yr for pulp. These harvest levels would only be achieved if no constraints are applied in the model and stands could all be harvested at exactly the assumed age. Short term harvest levels can vary substantially from these levels depending on the age of the forest being harvested.



5 Candidate Scenario Modelling Results Modelling results are presented for two candidate scenarios (Timber Focused and Natural Forest

Patterns) and then a number of sensitivity analyses are explored to understand alternative assumptions. Finally, a preferred scenario is identified and presented in detail.

5.1 Timber Focused (Baseline) Scenario

The Timber Focused scenario was designed to allow the model to focus almost solely on the production of timber over time. The landbase definition remained unchanged so consideration of non-timber values such as riparian and subjective leave areas are still in place – but inblock retention was not implemented. The key variables in the Timber Focused scenarios are shown in Table 6. A description of the critical variables for each candidate scenario is available in Appendix I. Table 6 Timber Focused Scenarios - Key Variable Descriptions.

Key Variable Timber Focused - NDY Timber Focused - Highest Initial

Harvest Flow Regime Highest possible Non-Declining HVS Highest possible Initial Harvest Rate. Max. 10% change per/period. Minimize impact to Long-term HVS.

Net Land base 1,467,907 (spatial), 1,455,143 (net) 1,467,907 (spatial), 1,455,143 (net) Growth and Yield As per development report As per development report

Minimum Harvest Ages As per modeling assumptions document (e.g. tA@45, jP@70, bS@80yrs, wS@65yrs)

As per modeling assumptions document (e.g. tA@45, jP@70, bS@80yrs, wS@65yrs)

Regeneration Delay 0 yrs. for H, HS, and SH-SxH, 1 yr. for all other S, and SH

1 yrs. for H, HS, and SH-SxH, 1 yr. for all other S, and SH

In-Block Retention Not modelled Not modelled Annual Operating Plan Not prioritized Not prioritized Seral Requirements Not modelled Not modelled Interior Forest Not modelled Not modelled Harvest Event Size Not modelled Not modelled Caribou Habitat Not modelled Not modelled Moose Habitat Not modelled Not modelled Fisher Habitat Not modelled Not modelled Visuals / Lakeshore Not modelled Not modelled Hillside Not modelled Not modelled Roads Not modelled Not modelled Two different harvest flow regimes were explored:

1. High Initial Step-down (max 10% steps per period) - designed to quickly harvest old timber and covert the landbase to a managed condition as soon as possible while limiting inter-period variation.

2. Non-Declining Even Flow – designed to show a steady state harvest. Increases are allowed only if they can be sustained indefinitely, and decreases are not allowed.

Figure 9 provides the harvest flow forecasts for the hardwood, softwood sawlogs, and softwood pulp for both flow regimes. The harvest request for the non-declining Timber Focused scenario was set at the calculated LRSY (Table 5) for both the hardwood and softwood sawlog volumes. It is able to sustain this level for 200 years because it is able to use some of the older stand ages (high volumes) over much of the timeframe. When the two flows are compared, it can be seen that the higher initial harvest flow in the first decades does not impact the long term sustainable harvest level. This occurs because harvest volume is captured from old stands before that would be lost to stand break up / succession (declining yield curves and/or mortality). If not harvested early in the planning horizon, the volume is



lost anyways (see Figure 10). The High Initial Flow harvests 749,000 m3/year more hardwood, 511,000 m3/year more sawlog, and 147,000 m³/year more pulp in the first decade relative to the non-declining flow.

Figure 9 Harvest flow by product for Timber Focused non-declining (solid line), highest initial (dashed line) scenarios.

Figure 10 shows that the extra harvest in the ‘high initial’ scenario reduces the amount of area

undergoing succession. In the ‘high initial’ scenario, there is ~3,200m³/yr. less succession at the peak than in the NDY flow regime.

Figure 10 Succession on the THLB from Timber Focused NDY (solid), highest initial (dashed).

Figure 11 shows total volume on the landbase (growing stock) by product type throughout the 200

year planning horizon, for both the NDY and high initial Timber Focused scenarios. In these scenarios, a non-declining growing stock target was applied at the end of the planning horizon so that, in the long term, the rate of harvest is equal to the rate of forest growth. Due to the higher harvest rates in the ‘High Initial’ scenario, the growing stock is depleted at a much higher rate than the ‘NDY’ scenario. However, over time (100 to 120 years in the future) the growing stock values converge because the



additional volume associated with older age classes is removed from the landbase either by harvesting and/or stand mortality (mortality just takes longer).

Figure 11 Total growing stock from timber focused NDY (solid) and high initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes.

The merchantable growing stock is the volume in stands that are within their respective operability

windows (appropriate age for harvest). Again, due to the greater harvest rate in the High Initial flow regime, merchantable growing stock is depleted more rapidly than in the NDY scenario (Figure 12). This graph shows that the minimum timber availability occurs 50-60 years from now under the High Initial flow regime, and around 100 years from now under the NDY flow regime.

Figure 12 Merchantable growing stock from timber focused NDY (solid) and high initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes.

Figure 13 provides the average harvest age over time for both of the Timber Focused flow regimes,

and Figure 14 provides the average harvest volume (m³/ha) over time. The High Initial flow can be seen



to harvest older stands for a shorter period of time relative to the NDY flow regime (hardwood and softwood), and higher volumes/ha are associated with these older stands. In the long term, very little difference is between the two flow regimes is present.

Figure 13 Average harvest age for timber focused NDY (Solid) and high initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes.

Figure 14 Average harvest volume for timber focused NDY (Solid) and high Initial (dashed) harvest flow regimes.

The age class distributions for the net landbase at 0, 50, 100, and 200 years in the future are shown

in Figure 15. The initial condition is obviously the same and as seen previouisly the long term is also quite similar. A difference can be see in the 50 yr graph in that the High Initial flow regime has harvested more of the old stands and thus show more area in the younger age classes. Both flow regimes ultimately convert the forest into a ‘regulated’ state, with a similar area in each age class below the rotation ages (70-90 yrs). Note that the 0-10 year age class contains more area because it represents an 11 year age class width due to the regeneration delay (i.e. the class spans ages -1 to 10).



Figure 15 Age class distribution on the net landbase at 0, 50, 100, and 200 years for the timber focused scenario.

5.2 The Natural Forest Patterns Scenario

This scenario is builds on the previous one but adds elements designed to help forest harvesting better mimic the forest patterns created by natural disturbances like fire – the most common means of forest renewal in the boreal forest. The Forest Service’s November 2014 draft Natural Forest Pattern (NFP) document was used to guide the implementation of issues such as event/patch sizes, stand-level retention, old and very old seral requirements, and interior old forest requirements.

Additional considerations for visually sensitive areas and wildlife habitat were also included in this scenario. All of the key variables in the NFP scenario are shown in Table 7. Further details of how these elements were implemented in the model are in Appendix IV. Table 7 Natural Forest Patterns Scenario - Key Variables Description

Key Variable Description Harvest Flow Regime Hold Current HVS as long as possible. Max 10% change/period. No compromise to long-term. Net Land base 1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net) Growth and Yield As per Development Report Minimum Harvest Ages As per modeling assumptions document (e.g. tA@45, jP @ 70, bS @80yrs, wS @ 65 yrs.) Regeneration Delay 2 yrs. for H, HS, and SH-SxH, 1 yr for all other S, and SH In-Block Retention 9% aspatial reserve (can count towards old seral if correct age) Annual Operating Plan Prioritized in first 10 years Seral Requirements 15% old plus age, 5% very old plus age Interior Forest Maximize 100 and 500 ha patches of old/very old forest – but not allowed to impact HVS. Harvest Event Size Harvest patch size distribution controlled but not allowed to impact HVS. Caribou Habitat Min harvest in area considered suitable and undisturbed 0-20 yrs. but no impact to HVS Moose Habitat Tracking only Fisher Habitat Tracking only Visuals -Lakeshore Visuals -Hillsides

Max 33% of MFLB to be <30 years at any time. Min 20% of MFLB to be >70/80 yrs (Hwd/ Swd). Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years.

Roads No tracking / no controls



The timber focused scenarios presented two flow regimes options. They showed how higher initial harvest rates captured volume prior to declines / succession losses, and did not impact the long term harvest level. For the remainder of the harvest scenarios presented in this report, a single harvest flow policy will be used that reflects a compromise between the two – it capture a portion of the volume losses before succession but also maintains amore stable flow of timber from the forest. The harvest flow policy is as follows:

Attempt to maintain the current harvest allocations (HVS), for each product type, for as long as possible without impacting sustainable

long-term harvest levels. This policy has been collectively agreed to by all Sakaw shareholders, and has been adopted for this

FMP. A harvest flow above the current HVS was possible but it was decided that maintaining the current HVS was prudent while the province works on range plans for Caribou.

The harvest forecast resulting from the adoption of this flow regime policy and the introduction of

NFP and other non timber value elements is shown in Figure 16. The current sawlog HVS can be maintained for 50 before stepping down to a long term level of 920,000 m3/yr. The current hardwood HVS can be maintained for 35 years before stepping down to a long term of 766,000 m3/yr. Following the trend seen in the Timber Focused scenario, the softwood pulp harvest is less than half of its current HVS. This occurs because of the difference in softwood yield curves relative to the previous FMP.

Figure 16 NFP Scenario - Harvest volume schedule by product.

Figure 17 shows the total growing stock over time for each product class, and Figure 18 shows the

merchantable growing stock over time. The planned shifting of age classes toward younger forest causes the decline in growing stock over the first 50 years. Long term growing stock is stable at ~80 million m³ because age class distributions on the landbase have become relatively stable. The merchantable growing stock graph shows that the period of least available mature timber will occur 55-65 years in the future.



Figure 17 NFP Scenario - Growing stock by product on the net landbase

Figure 18 NFP Scenario - Merchantable growing stock by cover type on the net landbase.

Other metrics are very similar to the ones presented for the Timber Focused scenario and are not

repeated here. Full details are provided for the Preferred Scenario in Section 7.



6 Sensitivity Analysis The sensitivity analyses presented in this section use the NFP scenario presented in Section 5.2 as

the baseline for comparison. The description of any of the sensitivity analysis scenarios includes only the key differences relative to the NFP scenario.

6.1 Provincial Full Utilization Scenario

This sensitivity investigates the impact on harvest flow from changing to the 2008 Provincial Utilization Standard curves. Yield Group stratification is slightly different for the 2008 vs 2013 yield curves, thus the landbase was re-stratified accordingly. The key difference in this scenario is shifting from an 8cm min top diameter to a 5cm min top diameter and including Tamarack (TL) volume. In the case, two runs were made - with and without including the TL volume.

The definitions for the yield group assignments for this scenario are illustrated in Table 8.

Table 8 Sensitivity analysis for Provincial Full Utilization Scenario - key variables description Key Variable Description

Harvest Flow Regime Hold Current Allocation as long as possible. Max 10% change/period. No compromise to long-term.

Net Land base 1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

Yield Stratification (2008 Provincial Utilization Curves)

Yield Group

Development Type

FMZ Site Crown Closure

1 HW 1,2,3 III B,C,D 2 HW 1,2,3 I,II B,C,D 3 HjP 1,2,3 I,II,III B,C,D 4 jPH 1,2,3 I,II,III B,C,D 5 HxS 2,3 I,II,III B,C,D 6 HxS 1 I,II,III B,C,D 7 xSH 2,3 I,II,III B,C,D 8 xSH 1 I,II,III B,C,D 9 bS 1,2,3 II,III B,C,D 10 bS 1,2,3 I B,C,D 11 jP 1,2,3 III B,C,D 12 jP 1,2,3 I,II B,C,D 13 jPbS 1,2,3 I,II,III B 14 jPbS 1,2,3 I,II,III C,D 15 wSbF 2,3 I,II,III B,C,D 16 wSbF 1 I,II,III B,C,D 17 tL11 1,2,3 I,II,III B 18 tL11 1,2,3 I,II,III C,D

Utilization

Variable Base Case Provincial Utilization

Stump Height 30cm 30cm Top dib 8cm 5cm Tamarack Included 2 Scenarios, 1 with

TL included 1 Without.



Key Variable Description

Minimum Harvest Ages

Yield Group

Description Min

Harvest Age

Max Harvest

Age 1 1_H_HW_Density_B 40 140 2 1_H_HW_Density_CD 40 140 3 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 55 145 4 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 55 155 5 3_SH_jPH_Density_B 60 145 6 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD 50 145 7 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 60 165 8 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 55 165 9 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 55 200

10 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 55 200 11 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor 60 155 12 6_S_bS_SiteGood 45 150 13 7_S_jP_SitePoor 50 175 14 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod 55 175 15 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor 70 165 16 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod 60 165 17 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 55 145 18 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 50 140

The 2008 provincial utilization curves did not contain the same product breakdowns found in the

yield curves used in this analysis (i.e. no product split between softwood sawlog and pulp) so the model was run with targets set only on the softwood and hardwood HVS.

Furthermore, when the current utilization curves were derived, the hardwood utilization was dramatically changed by shifting some hardwood stems into merchantable categories based on different interpretations of tree defect calls in the TSPs. Therefore, the hardwood curves are not directly comparable and thus are not presented here.1

Two provincial utilization scenarios were initially run, one including tamarack, and another with tamarack removed. These runs did not exhibit any significant difference in yield or growing stock because only a small subset of stands contained TL volume and these stands had <30% TL volume (following our net landbase definition). In the following comparisons, the provincial utilization curves contain tamarack.

Under the higher utilization standard, the short term softwood harvest level is 13.6% (+208,000 m³/yr) higher than the NFP scenario (Figure 19). This is followed by two 10% drops over two decades to a long-term flow of 1.41 million m³/yr which is 17.4% higher (208,000 m³/yr) than the NFP scenario. This increase is due to two key factors:

1. More of each tree is used (portion from 8cm to 5cm diameter) 2. Shorter trees that could not meet a merchantable length to a 8cm top were entirely

excluded previously, but if they can meet the merchantable length requirement using a 5cm top the entire tree is not included in the volume calculations. This makes the volume difference between the two utilization stand change over a stands age –with the biggest % difference seen when the stand is young and has a lot of shorter trees.

1 Even with the shift to a higher utilization level (5cm top vs 8cm top), the hardwood harvest forecast with the 2008 Provincial Utilization

curves was lower than the NFP scenario because of the compilation changes made in 2013. Thus it would have been misleading to present here and was left out.



Figure 19 HVS comparison between NFP and 2008 Provincial Utilization.

The provincial utilization growing stock remains essentially parallel throughout the planning horizon.

The growing stock is initially 19.8% greater, while the long-term growing stock is 18.4% greater than the NFP scenario (Figure 20).

Figure 20 Growing stock comparison between NFP and 2008 Provincial Utilization.

6.2 Higher Pulp

Due to the pulp volume forecasts being significantly lower than the current pulp HVS, it was necessary to explore this issue. In general, the difference occurs because the previous (1999) analysis applied pulp downgrade factors to sawlog size material to predict pulp volumes, while the current (2013



yield curves) used only log size and tree defect calls found in the TSP’s to predict pulp volume. At culmination ages, the 1999 FMP curves predicted that 35% of softwood volume would be pulp, while the 2014 curves suggest only 24% pulp.

In this sensitivity, a percentage of the small saw log volume from each of the yield curves was transferred to pulp volume (Table 9). These percentages are loosely based2 on the Weyerhaeuser 1999 FMP, Appendix 1.8 product distributions:

Table 9 Percentage of small sawlog per yield group transferred to pulp for the higher pulp sensitivity Yield

Group Description Age

Current % Pulp

@100yrs

Sawlog Downgrade

Target Adjusted

Pulp % Difference %

Difference 1 1_H_HW_B_Density 100 7% 15% 15% 8% 127% 2 1_H_HW_CD_Density 100 13% 15% 15% 2% 19% 3 2_HS_HjP_B_Density 100 11% 35% 35% 24% 208% 4 2_HS_HjP_CD_Density 100 25% 35% 35% 10% 41% 5 3_SH_jPH_B_Density 100 19% 35% 35% 16% 89% 6 3_SH_jPH_CD_Density 100 25% 35% 35% 10% 42% 7 4_HS_HxS_B_Density 100 14% 15% 15% 1% 11% 8 4_HS_HxS_CD_Density 100 12% 15% 15% 3% 23% 9 5_SH_SxH_B_Density 100 13% 15% 15% 2% 17%

10 5_SH_SxH_CD_Density 100 13% 15% 15% 2% 17% 11 6_S_bS_1_Site 100 24% 20% 24% 0% 0% 12 6_S_bS_23_Site 100 18% 20% 20% 2% 8% 13 7_S_jP_12_Site 100 22% 35% 35% 13% 59% 14 7_S_jP_3_Site 100 23% 35% 35% 12% 53% 15 8_S_jPbS_12_Site 100 17% 25% 25% 8% 44% 16 8_S_jPbS_3_Site 100 20% 25% 25% 5% 23% 17 9_S_wSbF_1_FMZ 100 18% 15% 18% 0% 0% 18 9_S_wSbF_23_FMZ 100 10% 15% 15% 5% 49% 19 10_S_tL_11_Comp 100 22% 25% 25% 3% 15%

Area Wtd. Avg. 17.5%

23.3%

An example of the change in contribution, by product type, is shown in Figure 21. Yield group 13 has

a 59% increase in pulp volume. Note that the total volume does not change.

2 Application to the current (2014) yield curves required that a single downgrade factor be used for a given species. So, for example,

where the 1999 table suggests that 40% of medium size JP and 10% of large JP is pulp, this was generalized to a 35% pulp factor for all JP.

Small Trees

Medium Size Trees

Large Trees



Figure 21 Change in contribution between the base case and sensitivity scenario for YG 13.

When the increased pulp proportions are implemented, the current Sawlog HVS can only be

maintained for 35 years before dropping to a long-term level that is 10.6% lower (98,000 m³/yr) than the base NFP scenario (Figure 22). Pulp harvest is 42.9% higher initially and 38.1% higher (106,000 m³/yr) in the long-term.

Figure 22 HVS comparison of NFP scenario and higher pulp scenario

The overall contribution of pulp to the total softwood harvest now comprises 31.8% of total

softwood harvest in the long-term, while in the NFP base it was 23.1% of the softwood harvest, a difference of 8.6%. Even with increased pulp factors, the pulp forecast is still well under the current HVS level (even with the current HVS sawlog harvest and ~31% pulp) – suggesting that the historical calculation of the 661,000 was done in some other way.

6.3 Volume Estimates +/- 10%

Yield estimates are a crucial part of harvest forecasting. The current yields were derived from ~6500 temporary sample plots of different ages with the assumption that the volume differences between ages were a result of growth. This approach gives a good estimate of the volume currently on the landbase but to get future growth trajectories, direct measurement of growth on permanent sample



plots is desired. So while the current yields are expected to be the best information currently available, they are subject to uncertainty. In addition, issues such as climate change may increase this uncertainty.

The objective of this sensitivity is to investigate the effect on harvest rates when the yield curves are increased / decreased by 10%.

Table 10 Sensitivity analysis for +/- 10% Volume scenario - key variables description Key Variable Description



Growth and Yield All volumes curves increased and decreased by 10% (no change to operability age windows)

When yields are increased by 10%, the current sawlog HVS can be extended by 25 years, and hardwood by 35 years (Figure 23). The long-term HVS is 10.2% higher than the NFP base case. It would also have been possible to immediately increase the HVS by 10%, but it was not modeled this way because the flow policy was to maintain the current HVS for as long as possible.

Figure 23 HVS comparison of NFP scenario and 10% increased yields scenario.

Growing stocks for all products are all 10% higher initially, and in the range of 10-10.9% at the end of the planning horizon.



Figure 24 Growing stock comparison between NFP scenario and 10% increased yields scenario.

When yields are decreased by 10%, the current sawlog HVS can only be maintained for 25 years (25 yrs less), and the current hardwood HVS can only be maintained for 20 year (15 years less). The long-term HVS for each of the three products is between 10 and 12 percent lower (Figure 25).

Figure 25 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and 10% decreased yields.

As expected, the initial growing stocks are initially 10% smaller (Figure 26). By the end of the planning horizon, the growing stocks are between 8.4% and 9.3% smaller.



Figure 26 Growing stock comparison between NFP scenario and scenario with 10% decreased yields.

6.4 10 Year Increase in Minimum Harvest Age

The minimum harvest ages (MHA) are important because they define how quickly regenerating stands can be accessed, and thus determine how long existing natural stand growing stock must be metered out. Typically, the MHA for a yield curve corresponds to the age at which the yield curve reaches the maximum mean annual incremental value, also called the culmination value. However, other constraints (e.g., operability) can shift the MHA to older or younger ages. For this sensitivity analysis, all MHA’s were increased by 10 years to explore the implications of having to wait longer for regenerating stands to become merchantable. Table 11 Sensitivity analysis for Increase in minimum harvest age scenario - key variables description





Yield Group Description Base MHA Sens. MHA 1 1_H_HW_Density_B 45 55 2 1_H_HW_Density_CD 50 60 3 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 60 70 4 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 65 75 5 3_SH_jPH_Density_B 60 70 6 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD 65 75 7 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 75 85 8 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 80 90 9 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 75 85 10 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 80 90 11 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor 65 75 12 6_S_bS_SiteGood 65 75 13 7_S_jP_SitePoor 70 80 14 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod 55 65 15 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor 80 90 16 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod 60 70 17 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 65 75 18 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 65 75 19 10_S_tL_11to30pct 50 60



Short term harvest levels are quite sensitive to an increase in MHAs. When MHAs were increased by 10 years, the current sawlog HVS can only be maintained for 25 years versus 50 years in the base NFP scenario, and the hardwood harvest can only be maintained for 15 years versus 35 years. In the long-term, the sawlog harvest level is 4.2% higher because older stands are providing less pulp (more sawlog). There is essentially no change in the long term for hardwood.

Figure 27 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and MHA +10 years.

The increase in MHA of 10 years results in a 15 year increase in softwood average harvest age, and a

12 year increase in hardwood average harvest age, calculated over the last 100 years (Figure 28).

Figure 28 Average harvest age comparison between NFP and MHA +10 years.

6.5 Decrease and Increase in Regeneration Delays

Regeneration delays occur when stands are not regenerated promptly following harvest and these delays can have negative impacts on harvest rates. The objective of this sensitivity analysis is to



investigate the impact on harvest rates if the regeneration delays are (a) increased by 1 year for hardwoods and 2 years for softwoods and (b) decreased by 2 years for softwoods. This later sensitivity would represent an advanced age of 1 year for softwood - potentially achieved by planting 1 year old stock in the same year as harvesting occurs.

Table 12 Regeneration age change by yield group for the decrease and increase in regeneration delay sensitivity

Yield group Description

NFP Baseline

(age reset)

Longer Delay

(age reset)

Shorter Delay

(age reset) 1 1_H_HW_Density_B 0 -1 0 2 1_H_HW_Density_CD 0 -1 0 3 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 0 -1 0 4 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 0 -1 0 5 3_SH_jPH_Density_B -1 -3 1 6 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD -1 -3 1 7 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 0 -1 0 8 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 0 -1 0 9 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 0 -2 2

10 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 0 -2 2 11 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor -1 -3 1 12 6_S_bS_SiteGood -1 -3 1 13 7_S_jP_SitePoor -1 -3 1 14 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod -1 -3 1 15 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor -1 -3 1 16 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod -1 -3 1 17 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 -1 -3 1 18 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 -1 -3 1 19 10_S_tL_11to30pct -1 -3 1

HVS was virtually unaffected by the increase in regen delay (Figure 29). There was however a slight

decrease in growing stock level over time relative to the NFP scenario (Figure 30).

Figure 29 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and increase in Regen delay.



Figure 30 Growing stock comparison between NFP Scenario and Increase in regen delay.

When the regeneration delay was decreased relative to the base NFP scenario, the current sawlog

HVS was extended by five years (one period) relative to the base NFP scenario. The long-term sawlog harvest level increased slightly by 1.2% (11,000 m³/year). The long-term growing stock levels were also slightly higher (3.0% overall; Figure 32).

Figure 31 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and decrease in regeneration delay.



Figure 32 Growing stock comparison between NFP Scenario and decreased regeneration delay.

6.6 Exclusion of High Pulp Stands

This scenario investigates the impact to sawlog harvest levels from no longer having access to stands with high pulp proportions for economic reasons. As a surrogate for this analysis, high pulp content stands were defined as those meeting the following criteria: stands in JLP, BSJ, BSL provincial forest types, with a site class of 3 or 4, and a Density of C or D (low site, high density). Approximately 127,900 ha of these stands were identified and removed from harvest eligibility, resulting in a 10% effective impact to the net area.

When these stands are excluded from harvest, the sawlog harvest HVS is maintained for only 40 years instead of 50 years. In the longterm, the sawlog and pulp harvest levels are both 2.9% lower (27,000 and 8,000, respectively) than the base NFP scenario. Hardwood HVS was virtually unaffected due to the relatively small amount of deciduous present in the types of stands that were excluded in this scenario.

The stands removed in this scenario have a relatively low yield per hectare a smaller % sawlog than the rest of the landbase, so the 10% area reduction translated into a disproportionately smaller harvest level impact. The impact of these stands is further lessened since they can contribute to non-timber objectives and thus can help to reduce the impact of old seral NFP requirements on the remaining landbase.



Figure 33 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and scenario with exclusion of high pulp stands.

This scenario was developed using built-in model functionality (timing constraints) to disallow

scheduling of treatments on predetermined high pulp stands. This did not remove the area from the net landbase; therefore, the growing stock comparison presented here shows the excluded high pulp stands, resulting in higher growing stock compared to the NFP (Figure 34). The comparison is included as it shows that the biggest difference in sawlog harvest rates between the two scenarios (40-70 years) correlates with the biggest difference in growing stock between the two scenarios.

Figure 34 Growing stock comparison between NFP and exclusion of high pulp stands scenarios.



6.7 Lower In-Block Retention

The percentage in-block retention (i.e., the forested area within a harvested block that is left standing for ecological purposes) is set at 9% for the NFP scenario. In this scenario, in-block retention was reduced from 9% to 4.5% to reflect the possibility that the net impact of leaving 9% at time of harvest may be less than the full 9% because of overlaps with other netdowns. The result is 66,055 ha of in-block retention removed from the landbase (instead of 132,112 ha).

Figure 35 shows that the 4.5% in-block retention scenario allows for an extra 5 years of HVS harvest for softwood and a longterm increase of 4.0%. Hardwood harvest shows no difference in the short term and a 3.7% increase in the longterm. The 4.5% increase in harvest volume at the block level does not translate into the same increase in harvest flow because the in-block retention contributes to old growth requirements, and when reduced they must now be filled elsewhere on the net landbase.

Figure 35 HVS comparison between NFP scenario and 4.5% in block retention.

Figure 36 Growing stock comparison between NFP and 4.5% in-block retention scenario.



6.8 Softwood Reduction

Softwood establishment in regenerating hardwood-leading and hardwood-mixed stands can be problematic due to extensive hardwood suckering. This scenario explores what may happen if a passive approach is taken to softwood establishment in these types. In this scenario, softwood volumes were reduced by 50% within regenerated hardwood stands, and 25% in regenerating hardwood mixed stands. Figure 37 shows the difference between the NFP scenario and this sensitivity for future managed Yield Group 1 (Hardwood yield group - 50% reduction of softwood, overall stand volume reduced). Overall stand volumes are assumed to be lower because the presence of softwood in the stand often does not come at the expense of hardwood volume (and a reduction in softwood would not allow for more hardwood).

Figure 37 Softwood contribution to yield volumes for NFP and 'less softwood' scenarios using YG1.

Table 13 shows that 28% of the net landbase has a 50% reduction in softwood (but little softwood

present already), and 12% has a 25% softwood reduction, while 60% of the landbase remains unchanged.

Table 13 Area contribution of different yield group reductions on the net landbase.

Total Area 50% Area 25% Area 0%

Area (Ha) 1,467,906 412,907 175,494 879,504

Percent 100% 28% 12% 60%

The result was no difference in the short-term HVS for any of the products because the initial yield curves remain the same. Later, as the existing stands transfer to managed stands with reduced softwood yields, there is a 8% decrease for sawlog harvest, and a 5% decrease in pulp harvest (Figure 38).



Figure 38 HVS comparison between NFP and softwood reduction scenario.

The growing stock also begins at the same level for all three products, and the hardwood growing

stock remains unchanged across the entire planning horizon. The sawlog growing stock decreases by 8.2% (2,900,000m³), and pulp by 5% (600,000m³) as the stands shift to managed yield curves.

Figure 39 Growing stock comparison between NFP and softwood reduction scenario.

6.9 Mixed Stands Regenerate with Less Hardwood Volume

This scenario assumes an active silviculture program occurs to allow current mixed stand types (HS/ SH) to regenerate with 25% more softwood volume than they had preharvest. The volume increase is shifted from the hardwood component of stands to the softwood component, with no change in total volume under the assumption that hardwood would need to be removed to achieve the goal.



Table 14 Summary of yield adjustment for the mixed stands regenerate with less hardwood volume sensitivity

Std Type Yield

Group MHA

Swd Netvol

(m³/ha)

Hwd netvol

(m³/ha) Total netvol

(m³/ha) %

Swd %

Hwd %

Shift % Swd

new % Hwd

new HS 3 6

40 38 78 51% 49% 25% 77% 22%

HS 4 6

79 67 146 54% 46% 25% 68% 32% SH 5 6

51 28 78 65% 35% 25% 89% 19%

SH 6 6

99 47 146 68% 32% 25% 85% 15% HS 7 7

79 34 113 70% 30% 25% 87% 13%

HS 8 8

82 94 176 47% 53% 25% 58% 42% SH 9 7

75 37 113 67% 33% 25% 84% 16%

SH 10 8

114 62 176 65% 35% 25% 80% 20% As seen in Figure 40 the forecasted harvest volumes remained unchanged in the short-term, and

shifted from the hardwood to the softwood in the long-term. The softwood volume (sawlog + pulp volumes) increased by 55,000 m³/yr (3.7%), and the hardwood volume decreased by 45,000 m³/yr. These results are expected due to the fact that the initial stands remained the same, and only the mixed stands slowly transitioned, over the planning horizon, to those with a higher proportion of softwood volume.

Figure 40 HVS comparison between NFP and increased softwood scenarios.

These same trends are seen in the comparison between the growing stocks (Figure 41). Initially all of

the growing stock values are the same. Over time, stands shift to those containing more softwood, and this scenario deviates from the NFP scenario. The softwood growing stock increases by 5.1% (2,500,000 m³), and the hardwood decreases by 6.8% (2 million m³).



Figure 41 Growing stock comparison between NFP and increased softwood scenarios.

6.10 Cut-to-Length Utilization (Softwood)

This scenario examines changing from tree length (TL) utilization to cut-to-length (CTL) utilization for softwood.

CTL involves bucking a tree using specific log length criteria and can result in the top portion of a tree being unutilized because it is too short to make a specific log length (Figure 42). The more flexible the log length criteria are - the less waste occurs.

Figure 42 Example bucking based on rigid 5m log lengths to a 10cm top.

Previous analysis work on this issue summarized in Penney 2010 (Sakâw Commitments on the PA

FMA Report) indicates a 4.5% HVS impact when switching from treelength to CTL (minimum top dib of 10 cm and 2.6 m log lengths were assumed). This was determined using the Forest Service’s stand/stock tables for the PA FMA which have net volumes determined for different utilization standards for each FCT inventory code (species, age, density). The analysis was conducted on all merchantable stands (height class 15m [>12.5m]) by linking the area of each FCT code to the volume/ha provided by the stand/stock tables.



This approach is expected to overestimate the impact of using CTL relative to how it is proposed on this FMA because of its rigid adherence to a single log length.

Alberta conversion factors (Stadt et al., 2014) were also examined as another approach to assessing impacts (AESRDProvincialUtilizationConversions2014). When a minimum 10cm top dib is used with a 2.44m rigid log length rule, a ~3% volume reduction factor is indicated for both hardwood and softwood stands in the Boreal Natural Region. [Assumes a 30cm stump height with a 12cm minimum stump diameter].

It should be noted that introducing flexibility in log sizes (i.e. 8’, 10’, 12’, 16’ length options), combined with optimal bucking process has been shown to greatly reduce the impact of shifting to CTL. A recent unpublished study in Alberta determined a ~1% impact in this circumstance.

For the purpose of this sensitivity analysis, the high end impact estimate of 4.5% was assumed. This volume was moved to the pulp component for all of the yield groups as the short log was assumed to be appended to the pulp log. The total volume of the stand did not change.

The change in projected sawlog harvest volume was 15 fewer years of current HVS harvest and a longterm that is 4.4% (41,000 m³/yr) lower than the NFP scenario. This volume loss is balanced by an increase in the pulp harvest volume of 72,000m³/yr in the short-term and 37,000 m³/yr in the long term. The hardwood volume remains unchanged as the hardwood yield curves are the same as the NFP scenario.

Figure 43 HVS comparison between NFP and cut to length scenarios.

As expected, the initial growing stock of sawlogs is 4.5% (3 million m³) lower, and the pulp growing

stock is 3 million m³ higher. The growing stocks for both softwood products eventually converge toward the NFP levels in the long-term (Figure 44).

http://esrd.alberta.ca/lands-forests/forest-management/documents/AESRDProvincialUtilizationConversions2014.zip



Figure 44 Growing stock comparison between HVS and cut to length scenarios.

6.11 Short-term Caribou Exclusions

The Saskatchewan government is still developing management direction for woodland caribou habitat in the province, including the Prince Albert FMA land base. Draft maps of high suitability caribou habitat, and areas of known caribou presence have been roughly identified. Based on the draft maps, the Sakaw shareholders have identified Caribou Habitat Maintenance Zones (Figure 45 and Table 15) around concentrations of high caribou habitat suitability and relatively low timber values. These zones are proposed as short-term harvest exclusion areas, with the intent of minimizing habitat fragmentation during the term of the FMP, while minimizing the impact on timber supply.

Table 15 Net Area covered by proposed caribou maintenance areas

Caribou Area Gross Area (Ha)

% of Gross PA FMA Area Net Area (Ha)

Net % of Gross Area

1 82,747 2.5% 26,211 32% 2 9,596 0.3% 94 1% 3 52,270 1.6% 7,643 15% 4 114,328 3.4% 17,856 16% 5 20,026 0.6% 1,458 7% 6 113,885 3.4% 9,507 8% 7 99,433 3.0% 44,874 45% 8 55,591 1.7% 9,670 17%

Total 547,877 16.4% 117,313 21.4% In this scenario, temporary caribou exclusions were imposed for 50 years (management intent is

only for 20 years or until Range Plans direct otherwise), while current AOP blocks within the exclusion zones were permitted to be harvested. The result is that there is essentially no deviation from the NFP scenario for harvest levels or the growing stock (Figure 46).



Figure 45 Caribou Maintenance Zones

Figure 46 HVS comparison between NFP and Caribou exclusion scenarios.



6.12 Managed Stand Yield Gain

Managed stands (post-harvest, regenerated stands) are often more productive in terms of volume because there is purposeful management of stocking and spatial regeneration patterns in order to meet government regeneration requirements. In this scenario, a 10% softwood volume increase was applied to all the future managed stands containing softwood (Yield Groups > 2).

The resulting short-term sawlog and hardwood harvest flows are unaffected, but there is a gain in the long-term for both softwood products (Figure 47). This occurs because the short-term yield curves are the same and all hardwood curves are the same as in the NFP scenario. The softwood harvest increased proportionally with the increased yield curves; sawlogs see an increase of 9.5% (88,000m³/yr), and pulp an increase of 10.4% (29,000m³/yr). There is an option to use this extra volume to increase short term harvest levels as well, but it is not shown here.

Figure 47 HVS comparison between managed stand yield gain and NFP.



6.13 Summary of Sensitivities

Table 16 summarizes the impact on HVS, for each of the sensitivities, relative to the NFP base case. Table 16 Synopsis of sensitivities.

Scenario HVS - Initial Deviation from NFP HVS-Long Term Deviation from NFP

Pulp Saw Hwd Pulp Saw Hwd

Provincial Util +13.6% (208,000m³/yr) +17.4% (208,000m³)/yr

Higher Pulp +115,000m³/yr -15years No change +106,000m³/yr -98,000 m³/yr No change

Volume + 10% +1,000m³/yr +25 years +35 years +28,000m³/yr +95,000m³/yr +77,000m³/yr

Volume - 10% -16,000m³/yr -25 years -15 years -28,000m³/yr +76,000³/yr +94,00m³/yr

MHA + 10 -8,000m³/yr -25 years -20years -28,000 m³/yr 44,000m³/yr no change

Increase Regen Delays no change no change no change no change no change no change

Decrease Regen Delays +1,000m³/yr +5 years No change +5,000m³/yr +11,000m³/yr no change

Exclusion of High pulp stands

+5,000m³/yr +10 years No change -8,000m³/yr 23,000m³/yr -8,000m³/yr

4.5% in-block retention +2,000m³/yr +5 years No change +13,000 m³/yr +37,000m³/yr +28,000m³/yr

Softwood Reduction no change no change no change -10,000m³/yr no change -64,000m³/yr

Less Hardwood Regen no change no change no change +9,000m³/yr +37,000m³/yr -45,000m³/yr

Cut-To-Length Util +72,000m³ -15 years no change +37,000m³/yr -41,000m³/yr no change

Caribou Exclusions no change no change no change no change no change no change

Managed Stand Yield Gain

no change no change no change +30,000m³/yr +88,000m³/yr no change

No sensitivities indicated that the current HVS could not be maintained for the term of this plan.



7 Preferred Scenario Results The preferred management scenario reflects the planning team’s vision of desired management of

the FMA for the term of this FMP. It includes managing for NFP, Cut-to-Length utilization for softwood, and management for Caribou Habitat Maintenance Zones as an interm measure until Range Plans are completed. Table 17 The Preferred Scenario - Key Variables Description




Growth and Yield Cut-to-Length for Softwood (4.5% sawlog shifted to Pulp, no change in overall softwood volume)

Minimum Harvest Ages As per modeling assumptions document (e.g. tA@45, jP @ 70, bS @80yrs, wS @ 65 yrs)

Regeneration Delay 2 yrs for H, HS, and SH-SxH, 1 yr for all other S, and SH In-Block Retention 9% aspatial reserve (can count towards old seral if correct age) Annual Operating Plan Prioritized in first 10 years Seral Requirements 15% old plus age, 5% very old plus age

Interior Forest Maximize 100 and 500 ha patches of old/very old forest – but not allowed to impact HVS.

Harvest Event Size Harvest patch size distribution controlled (10 yr patch defn) but not allowed to impact HVS.

Caribou Habitat

Min harvest in area considered suitable and undisturbed 0-20 yrs but no impact to HVS. No harvest within Caribou maintenance zones for the first 50 years except current Year 1 AOP blocks.

Moose Habitat Tracking only Fisher Habitat Tracking only

Visuals / Lakeshore Management Max. 33% of the MFLB can be <30 years at any time. A Min of 20% of the MFLB must be >70/80 years (HWD/ SWD).

Hillside Visual Management Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years. Roads No tracking / no controls

The harvest forecasts by product for the preferred scenario are shown in Figure 48.

• The current hardwood HVS (947,000 m³/yr) can be maintained for 35 years, and the long-term harvest is 767,000 m³/yr.

• The current sawlog HVS (1,265,000 m³/yr) can be maintained for 35 years, and the long-term harvest is 881,000 m³/yr.

• The pulp harvest level is 339,000 m3/yr in the short term and 315,000 in the long term. This is well below the current HVS of 661,000 m³/yr.

Differences from the NFP scenario are primarily due to the adoption of the softwood cut-to-length utilization, as the short-term caribou deferral sensitivity had no impact on HVS (see Section 6.11).



Figure 48 Preferred Scenario – Harvest volume schedule by product.

Figure 49 shows the contribution of incidental volumes to the total harvest by product. Incidental

volume is softwood volume realized from harvesting hardwood-leading stands and vice versa. On average, 8.9% of hardwood volume comes from softwood-leading stands, 10.5% of softwood sawlog, and 7.5% of softwood pulp come from harvesting hardwood-leading stands.

Figure 49 Preferred Scenario - Annual Incidental Harvest Volume by product.

Total growing stock on the net land base declines for the first 60 years and recovers slightly before

reaching a steady state condition around 100 years from now (Figure 50). This reflects the shifting of the land base to a younger age class distribution, and then a balanced state where harvest equals growth.

Merchantable growing stock declines rapidly for the first 60 years to reach a low of 16.7 M m3 for HWD and 23.3M m3 for softwood (sawlogs + pulp). This indicates that 50-60 years from now will be the most challenging to find merchantable wood and thus, this time period is a key driver for timber supply



results (i.e. a pinch point). Beyond this, relatively stable levels of merchantable growing stock are seen, which is consistent with the objective of shifting the landscape to a younger age class distribution. As stands become older than minimum harvest age, they are typically harvested, unless they are needed to meet a non-timber objective such as old seral retention.

Figure 50 Preferred Scenario – Growing stock by product on the net land base.

Figure 51 Preferred Scenario -merchantable growing stock on the net land base.

Annual harvest area averages around 16,600 ha/year over the first 70 years, and then in the last 100

years averages around 15,300 ha/year. Most of the harvest area consist of softwood stands (56%



average for 200-year planning horizon) followed by hardwood stands (29%) and mixed-wood stands (10% HS, 6% SH).

Figure 52 Preferred Scenario - Annual harvest area by stand types (200-year average %’s)

The average harvest age in the first 70-80 years is much higher than in the long term as a large

portion of the land base is comprised of older stands at the beginning of the planning horizon (Figure 53). After 80 years the harvest ages stabilize around 79 years for softwood, and 73 years for hardwood. Figure 54 provides a breakdown of the area harvested within each harvest age class and shows that for the first 40 years there is almost no younger second growth being harvested.

Figure 53 Preferred Scenario - Average harvest age by stand types



Figure 54 Preferred Scenario - Area harvested by age class

Average harvest volume is slightly higher near the beginning of the planning horizon and then

fluctuates between 140-160 m3/ha in the case of hardwood and 110-120 m3/ha in the case of softwood (Figure 55). The difference in volume /ha between the short and long term is moderated (despite different harvest ages) by the declining yield produced from older stands. These yield declines are largely avoided in the long term as stands are harvested at or near their peak volumes.

Figure 55 Preferred Scenario - Average harvest volume by stand types

Figure 56 indicates that the harvested piece size will remain consistent for several decades as

harvesting occurs in the older existing stand types, but then it will decline significantly for hardwoods and slightly for softwood as younger stands are harvested.



Figure 56 Preferred Scenario – Piece Size by stand type

The area undergoing succession over time by species type is shown in Figure 57. The succession rate

peaks 70 years from now, which indicates that the harvest flow policy of maintaining the current allocation (harvest) for as long as possible is not high enough to capture all of the eligible older stands before they undergo succession.

Figure 57 Preferred Scenario - Area undergoing succession over time by stand type.

Figure 58 shows the age class distribution from time 0 to 200 years in the future. The goal of

shifting the age class structure toward a younger, more natural distribution is evident in the Year 100 and Year 200 charts. Compared to the Timber Focused scenario (Figure 15), there is more net area in older age classes at the end of the 200-year because of the old seral requirements in this scenario.

Additional timber supply analysis metrics are included in Appendix II.



Figure 58 Preferred Scenario - Age class distribution by land base type at year 0, 50, 100, and 200.



8 Conclusions After exploring numerous management scenarios and sensitivity analyses, a Preferred Management

Scenario was selected that considered Natural Forest Patterns guidance [9% in-block retention, 15% old seral, interior old seral, harvest event size distribution], deferred harvest in Caribou Habitat Maintenance Zones, and cut-to-length utilization for softwood (tree length for hardwood). This scenario is able to support the current softwood sawlog HVS of 1,265,000m³/year and the current hardwood HVS of 947,000m³/year for 35 years, while the forecasted pulp harvest of 339,000m³/year falls well short of the current HVS of 661,000m³/year.

Long term harvest rates are lower than short term levels because the suppression of fires has allowed the FMA’s age class distribution to become unnaturally old and thus contain higher volumes per hectare than future managed stands. It is the management intent of the FMP to bring age classes more in line with a landscape which is experiencing a natural fire disturbance regime.

Sensitivity analysis indicated that there is sensitivity to extended rotation ages – having to wait an extra 10 years to harvest second growth stands would reduce the number of years the HVS can be maintained dramatically. Softwood harvest levels could be substantially improved if higher utilization standards are adopted – but much of the additional volume realized would be pulp. Overall, no sensitivities indicated that the current sawlog and hardwood HVS’s could not be maintained for the term of the plan.

The recommended HVS for the 2015-2035 FMP is as follows: Table 18 Recommended harvest levels for the 2015-2035 FMP.

2015-2035 FMP Timeframe

Softwood Harvest (m3/yr)

Hardwood Harvest (m3/yr)

Softwood Pulp Harvest (m3/yr)

2015-2024 1,265,000 947,000 340,000 2025-2034 1,265,000 947,000 340,000



10 References

Andison, D., 2005. Determining Island Remnants and Meso-scale Fire Patterns in Saskatchewan. Part 1: Disturbance Event Patterns. Bandaloop Landscape-Ecosystem Services.

Cieszewski, C.J., Bella, I.E., and Yeung, D.P., 1993. Preliminary site index height growth curves for eleven timber species in Saskatchewan. Draft unpublished report. Canada-Saskatchewan Partnership Agreement in Forestry, Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service.

Gelhorn, L. [Timberline Forest Inventory Consultants Ltd.]. 2006. New taper equation calibration for Saskatchewan. Weyerhaeuser Saskatchewan / Saskatchewan Forest Centre.

Gelhorn, L. [Timberline Natural Resource Group Ltd.]. 2008. Yield Curve Development for the Prince Albert Timber Supply Area – Natural Stand Yield Curves. 78p.

Hemens, B. 2006. Potential Harvest Levels in the Prince Albert FMA Area. Forest Inventory & Resource Analysis Section. Saskatchewan Environment Forest Service.

Kong, X. 2009. DRAFT: Modelling the Wood Supply of the PA FMA Area Part 1: Emulating the 1999 FMP Model Formulation. Forest Inventory & Resource Analysis Section. Saskatchewan Environment Forest Service.

M. C. Hansen, P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, , & J. R. G. Townshend 2013 High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change Science 15 November 2013: 342 (6160), 850-853. [DOI:10.1126/science.1244693]

Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment and Resource Management. 1985. Timber Supply Analysis in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment. 2007. Forest Management Planning Document.

Weyerhaeuser Canada. 1999. Volume 1 Twenty Year Forest Management Plan.



Appendix I – Summary Comparison of Modelled Scenario Assumptions

Key Variable

Section Reference / Scenario Description 5.1 5.2 7

Timber Focused - NDY Full NFP - Current Allocation The Preferred Scenario

Harvest Flow Regime

a) Highest possible Non-Declining HVS b) Highest possible Initial Harvest Rate. Max. 10% change per/period. Minimize impact to Long-term HVS.

Hold Current Allocation as long as possible. Max 10% change/period. No compromise to long term.

Hold Current Allocation as long as possible. Max 10% change/period. No compromise to long-term.


1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

Growth and Yield As per development report As per Development Report Cut-to-Length Approximation (4.5% sawlog to Pulp)


As per modeling assumptions document (eg. tA@45, jP@70, bS@80yrs, wS@65yrs)

As per modeling assumptions document (e.g. tA@45, jP @ 70, bS @80yrs, wS @ 65 yrs)


Regeneration Delay 0 yrs for H, HS, and SH-SxH, 1 yr for all other S, and SH

0 yrs for H, HS, and SH-SxH, 1 yr for all other S, and SH


In-Block Retention Not Modelled 9% aspatial reserve (can count towards old seral if correct age)

9% aspatial reserve (can count towards old seral if correct age)

Annual Operating Plan Not prioritized Prioritized in first 10 years Prioritized in first 10 years

Seral Requirements Not Modelled 15% old plus age, 5% very old plus age

15% old plus age, 5% very old plus age

Interior Forest Not Modelled

Maximize 100 and 500 ha patches of old/very old forest – but not allowed to impact HVS.


Harvest Event Size Not Modelled

Harvest patch size distribution controlled (10 yr patch defn) but not allowed to impact HVS.


Caribou Habitat Not Modelled

Min harvest in area considered suitable and undisturbed 0-20 yrs but no impact to HVS

Min harvest in area considered suitable and undisturbed 0-20 yrs but no impact to HVS.

Moose Habitat Not Modelled Tracking only No harvest within Caribou maintenance zones.

Fisher Habitat Not Modelled Tracking only Tracking only

Visuals / Lakeshore Management

Not Modelled

Max. 33% of the MFLB can be <30 years at any time. A Min of 20% of the MFLB must be >70/80 years (HWD/ SWD).

Tracking only

Hillside Visual Management

Not Modelled Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years.


Roads Not Modelled No tracking / no controls Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years.



Key Variable

Section Reference / Scenario Description 6.1.1 6.1.2 6.1.3

Provincial Full Utilization Higher Pulp Volume +/- 10%

Harvest Flow Regime





1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

Growth and Yield Use provincial Full Utilization Curves (5cm top but no TL vol)

A variable percentage of small sawlog transferred to pulp.

All volumes curves increased and decreased by 10%








In-Block Retention




Annual Operating Plan Prioritized in first 10 years Prioritized in first 10 years Prioritized in first 10 years

Seral Requirements 15% old plus age, 5% very old plus age



Interior Forest




Harvest Event Size




Caribou Habitat




Moose Habitat Tracking only Tracking only Tracking only Fisher Habitat Tracking only Tracking only Tracking only






Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years.



Roads No tracking / no controls No tracking / no controls No tracking / no controls



Key Variable


10 Year Increase in Minimum Harvest Age

Decrease and Increase in Regeneration Delay Exclusion of High Pulp Stands

Harvest Flow Regime





1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

1,340,007 (spatial), 1,207,856 (net)

Growth and Yield As per Development Report As per Development Report As per Development Report





Regeneration Delay


a)increase by 1 year for hardwoods and 2 years for softwoods. B) Decreased by 1 years for softwoods.


In-Block Retention








Interior Forest




Harvest Event Size




Caribou Habitat
















Key Variable


Lower In-Block Retention Softwood Reduction Lower Hardwood

Regeneration

Harvest Flow Regime




Net Land base 1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net) 1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

Growth and Yield

As per Development Report

In H stands, softwood volumes reduced by 50 % for regenerated stands and in HS, softwood volumes reduced by 25%.

25% higher softwood in HS and SH types. Swd gains subtracted from Hwd volumes for no change in total volume.








In-Block Retention

4.5% aspatial reserve (can count towards old seral if correct age)







Interior Forest




Harvest Event Size




Caribou Habitat
















Key Variable

Section Reference / Scenario Description

6.1.10 6.1.11 6.1.12

Cut-to-length Utilization Short-Term Caribou

Exclusions Managed Stand Yield

Gains

Harvest Flow Regime





1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

1,467,907 (spatial), 1,323,032 (net)

Growth and Yield

A 4.5% shift of volume taken from sawlog curves and included in the pulp curves for all of the yield groups. No change in overall volume.

As per Development Report 10% gain on future managed Softwood stands.








In-Block Retention








Interior Forest




Harvest Event Size




Caribou Habitat


Min harvest in area considered suitable and undisturbed 0-20 yrs but no impact to HVS. Avoid harvest in proposed caribou maintenance areas for first 50 years but allow AOP harvest.







Hillside Visual Management Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years.






Appendix II Preferred Scenario Detailed Metrics

Table 19 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario - Old Seral target controls by NFP unit and species group. Area by Species Group and Management Unit

NFP NAME/Group Species H HS_SH S_BSJ_BSL S_JLP S_WSF CLP_WU 80,939 42,639 64,617 14,156 13,012 LH_SCP_TU_SR 122,131 26,207 28,375 18,084 10,236 LRL_North 17,662 20,533 61,916 39,808 2,566 LRL_South 17,702 16,844 43,305 47,672 3,514 MLP_ELU 31,716 21,625 47,016 25,102 3,861 MLP_SP_LPP_DLL 39,032 35,974 64,122 20,665 10,280 SP 3,310 4,248 29,003 17,886 789 WAPA_U 27,045 26,829 63,783 44,223 2,176 WASK_U 17,578 19,210 68,006 35,931 3,332 WGP_MRP 24,214 11,543 45,564 42,467 3,198 WP 25,287 29,879 100,306 62,328 4,461



Table 20 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario - Interior Old Forest Habitat



Table 21 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario - Caribou Habitat

Caribou Habitat Year 0 Caribou Habitat Year 50



Caribou Habitat Year 100 Caribou Habitat Year 200



Table 22 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario – Fisher Habitat

Fisher Habitat Year 0 Fisher Habitat Year 50



Fisher Habitat Year 100 Fisher Habitat Year 200



Table 23 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario – Moose Browse Habitat

Moose Browse Habitat Year 0 Moose Browse Habitat Year 50



Moose Browse Habitat Year 100 Moose Browse Habitat Year 200



Table 24 Key estate modeling metrics for the preferred scenario – Moose Cover Habitat

Moose Cover Habitat Year 0 Moose Cover Habitat Year 50



Moose Cover Habitat Year 100 Moose Cover Habitat Year 200



Appendix III - Comparisons to Previous Analyses This section compares and contrasts the information and assumptions used in this analysis with

those used in the 1999 PA FMP produced by Weyerhaeuser.

10.1 Inventory

This analysis uses a consolidated inventory predominately composed of the Weyerhaeuser Inventory converted to SFVI standards in 2006 based on imagery captured between 1998 and 2004. Interpretation was completed in 2004. Previous UTM inventory was added where no information was available. This inventory has been updated to make it current to 2014 by incorporating harvesting, infrastructure, fire, and wind disturbances that has occurred since imagery capture. The previous FMP used an inventory current to April 1, 1996 that was originally assembled by SERM based on air photos taken between 1980 and 1987.

10.2 Land Base

The gross area of the PA FMA is 5.9% larger than the gross area reported in the 1999 FMP (Figure 59). An accurate comparison of the land base between the 2014 analysis and 1999 FMP is difficult because: (1) the 1999 FMP did not include provincial parks in the land base description, (2) the hierarchy for the land base removals in the 2014 analysis was different, and (3) different base inventories were used.

Figure 59 PA FMA – Area comparison for key land base components between 1999 FMP and 2014.

The non-forest area occupies 1.528 M ha (1.492 M ha of effective reductions) in the 2014 analysis, approximately 3% higher than the 1999 FMP (by 49,000 ha). This difference is mainly caused by the inclusion of the newly constructed roads since the 1999 FMP in the non-forest category.

Parks and RAN area is 6% higher in the 2014 analysis but this is partly because a different netdown hierarchy was employed relative to the 1999 FMP. From a practical point of view, the area of Parks/RANs did increase relative to 1999 because of the addition of the Great Blue Heron park (8,364 ha gross area).

The managed productive forest area is 1.2% higher in the 2014 analysis. This is the landbase that is allowed to contribute toward non timber objectives such as old seral requirements. It does not include parks and RANs in either the 2014 analysis or 1999 FMP. The 2014 area is higher despite the increase in



non-forest and Parks/RANs because it was offset by less disposition area (e.g. rescinded jail site) and less area in Treaty Land Entitlements.

The non-commercial area is significantly larger in the 2014 analysis due to non-commercial definitions inherited from the G&Y work done in 2008 (larchy stands, low site and low crown closure definitions). The low site and low crown closure definition were taken from the Forest Management Planning Document (pg. 228 FMPD – min 25% CC and 15m height class to be merchantable3). The condition described on this page is not used to define low density/low crown closure stands, rather used to define a merchantable stand whose PFT is classified differently in terms of converting attributes of three tree layers to one tree layer. The concept of low crown closure was first used by Lane Gelhorn, when he developed the growth and yield curves for the PA FMA in 2008 by excluding ‘A’ density stands from the productive landbase. The 2014 netdown removed ~223,000 ha while only 45,000 ha were removed in the 1999 FMP. The 223,000 ha in the 2014 was comprised of >30% tL stands (121,600 ha), low site productivity stands (49,900 ha), and low density stands (47,000 ha).

The final Net Land Base area in 2014 is 7.5% smaller (~114,000 fewer ha) than in 1999 due to the differences, discussed above, with the inventories, net down exclusions, and non-commercial area.

Other factors that changed the net land base in the 2014 analysis include:

Steep and unstable slopes account for ~7,200 ha in the 2014 analysis. Reductions for this category in the 1999 FMP were included in the 4% volume reduction applied for riparian, visual, and environmentally sensitive areas.

Subjective leave areas account for ~1,600 ha in the 2014 analysis. These were applied in the 1999 FMP as dispositions but have now expired.

The treaty land entitlements account for ~3,500 ha in the 2014 analysis. A preliminary area of ~11,800 ha was applied in the 1999 FMP but treaty land entitlements have since been established.

Isolated Stands consisting of merchantable stands that are less than 4 ha in size and are more than 100 m away from other net land base areas account for ~6,120 ha in the 2014 analysis. Isolated stands were not considered in the 1999 FMP.

Riparian area reserves account for ~0.4% of the productive land base and ~1.7% of the total land base in the 2014 analysis. This was derived from creating spatial buffers around mapped lakes, rivers, and streams as guided by the PA FMA standards. For more information on reserve and management width see Section 3.4.4 in the assumptions document. The 1999 FMP applied a 4% volume reduction to account for riparian zones, visually and environmentally sensitive areas, and steep slopes.

In-block retention of 4% (area reduction) is applied to all harvested stands in the 2014 analysis. The 1999 FMP applied an average of 3% area reduction (1% for coniferous stands, 4% for deciduous stands).

Future permanent roads are accounted in the 2014 analysis by applying a reduction of 1.5% net (3% gross) to the spatial net landbase area. It is not clear if the 1999 FMP included reductions for this category. The permanent road accounting for 1.5% reduction of the net area only in the first rotation for the 1999 FMP (see Table 4.4.10 on page 4-62 of the 1999 FMP document).

Future SERM Withdrawals were accounted in the 1999 FMP by applying a net area reduction of 4.14% respectively but it is unclear how they relate to the current netdown.

3 Growth and yield work (pg 16) assumed that if a tree could not reach 12.5m tall in 120 yrs it was site class 4 and was excluded from the

landbase.



10.3 Growth and Yield

A detailed assessment of the 1999 vs 2015 yield curves has been submitted in a separate Forsite memo dated Oct 28, 2015. It shows that the 1999 yield curves produce higher yields at younger harvest ages and lower yields at older harvest ages. When assessed using LRSY calculations at CMAI ages, the hardwood harvest would increase by 20% with the 1999 yield curves, while the softwood sawlog harvest would increase by 14%, and the pulp harvest would increase by 88%. Refer to the Pulp Proportion memo in this series (Forsite Oct 2015) for more detail on why more pulp is present in the 1999 curves (small trees, tops of sawlogs, downgraded sawlogs).

Modeling with the 1999 yield curves in the 2015 NFP model showed HVS differences of:

• Short term: +12% hardwood, -5% softwood sawlog, +89% pulp

• Long term: +17% hardwood, +17% softwood sawlog, +89% pulp

Shifting to the 2015 yield curves clearly has a negative impact on HVS, particularly on pulp.

In addition to these base yield curve differences, the 1999 FMP included yields gains from silviculture that typically added 10% to hardwood stands and 15-20% to softwood stands (described further below). There were no silviculture gains assumed for managed stands in the 2015 analysis.

10.4 Management Assumptions

Differences in operability windows and breakup ages between the 2015 analysis and 1999 FMP are shown in Table 25.

Table 25 PA FMA - Comparing operability windows and breakup ages between the 1999 FMP and 2015.

Stand Group Description

1999 FMP 2015 analysis

Ave. MHA

Ave. Break

up Yield

#'s Species

Associations Ave. MHA

Ave. Break

up Yield

#'s Dev. Type PFT

Hardwoods 39 130 38-44 TA, BP 48 145 1-2 HW TAB, AOH Hardwood with pine mixedwood 50 140 32-37 JPTA, TAJP 63 150 3-4 HjP HPM Pine dominated mixedwood 50 140 32-37 JPTA, TAJP 63 150 5-6 jPH MPW Hardwood with spruce mixedwood 42 140 100-105 TAWS 78 163 7-8 HsS HSM Spruce dominated mixedwood 61 150 26-31 WSTA, TAWS 78 188 9-10 SxH SMW Black spruce or tamarack/larch dominated softwood 55 171 7-12 BS 68 200 11-12 bS BSL Jack or lodgepole pine dominated softwood 54 146 13-18 JP 63 138 13-14 jP JPL Black spruce and Jack pine dominated mixed softwood 63 153 20-15 BSJP, BPBS 70 163 15-16 jPbS BSJ White spruce or balsam fir dominated softwood 39 166 1-6 WS 65 188 17-18 wSbF WSF

Area Wt. Ave. 55 150

61 163

In the 1999 FMP, stands were stratified into 44 yield groups compared to 18 (not including tamarack dominated stands) in the 2015 analysis. To produce a valuable comparison between the two FMPs, similar stand types in the 1999 FMP were grouped to closely match the stand types in the 2015 analysis. The minimum harvest age (MHA) and break-up age of most groups are younger in the 1999 FMP compared to the 2015 analysis. In the 1999 FMP, the average MHA was 55 years and the break-up age was 150 years (area weighted averages). In the 2015 analysis, the average MHA was 61 years and the break-up age was 163 years (area weighted averages).



The average harvest age in the 1999 analysis declined to a low of 65 years in year 70 of the planning horizon (Figure 4.5.6 in the 1999 FMP Twenty-year plan). Younger MHAs can help to avoid pinch points because harvesting can occur in younger managed stands once older stands are liquidated. The youngest average harvest age in the 2015 analysis work to date was around 76 years.

At the request of the Forest Service, Forsite assessed the HVS impacts due to the operability windows and break-up ages differences between the 1999 FMP and 2015 analysis (submitted in a separate memo). The results indicated the HVS was reduced by 7% (17% hardwoods, 5% softwoods sawlogs, and 5% softwood pulp) when the younger MHAs and break-up ages (from the 1999 FMP) were used. This is because younger break-up ages allowed more stands to undergo succession in the short term and encouraged the model in the long term to recruit more stands in the net area to meet the old and very old seral requirements.

Natural vs. Managed – The 2015 analysis uses natural stand yield curves for all natural and managed stands (i.e. no volume gains from active management were assumed). In the 1999 FMP, managed stands included gains associated with various silviculture treatment regimes (weighted average gain was 11.6% across all managed stands):

1. Natural regeneration of hardwoods – 0% gain 2. natural regeneration of conifer with density control (ND) – 10% gain, 3. natural regeneration of conifer with scarification (SS) – 10% gain, 4. natural regeneration of conifer with density control and scarification (SD) – 15% gain, and 5. Plantations with density control (PD) – 20% gain. Seral targets in the 1999 FMP were modeled by implementing a minimum of 5% retention of late seral and 1% very late seral stage (10%/2% for wS stands) for each of the 10 Forest Management Units. The 2015 analysis has a minimum seral stage retention level of 15% old and 5% very old for each ecosystem management unit and species group combination. The 2015 requirements are more constraining than those in the 1999 FMP. Upon developing the NFP model for the 2015 analysis, implementation of seral stage requirements alone suggests an approximate 10% HVS reduction.

Interior forest habitat requirements are still being developed for the 2015 analysis. Interior habitat is currently defined as the old forest free of edge effects (i.e., 60 m away from permanent anthropogenic disturbances and 30 m away from stands less than 40 years old). The interior forest habitat requirement was not considered in 1999. This requirement has the potential to impact HVS but has not yet been implemented.

Fires were previously considered by applying a 13.76% reduction to the harvest forecast. This factor was developed through an iterative process which determined the no-fire standing volume and the probability of realizing this volume. Multiplying the no-fire estimated volume with the probability that it will still be standing at time of harvest resulted in the standing volume considering fire. This factor was applied outside of the model in the 1999 FMP. The 2015 analysis does not make any reductions for fires but uses a 10% re-planning threshold on the net area basis(i.e., when the naturally disturbed area is accumulated to 10% of the net area, it will trigger the process of recalculating the HVS during the FMP term). This should have a strong upward pressure on timber supply in the recent analysis.

10.5 LRSY Comparisons

One way to approximate the HVS impacts using different yield curves is to estimate the long run sustainable yield (LRSY) that can be achieved on the same land base definition. Using the 2015 analysis land base definition, the LRSY was estimated for both sets of yield curves (1999 FMP and 2015 analysis)



(Table 26). LRSY was calculated for each yield at the age of culmination mean annual increment (CMAI) for the hardwood volume (for hardwood leading stands) or for the softwood volume (for the softwood leading stands). The results indicate that using the 2015 FMP yield curves, the total volume decreased by approximately 27% from the 1999 FMP. When split by product components, 20% lower volume for hardwoods, 14% lower volume for softwood sawlogs, and 87% lower volume for softwood pulp is achieved compared to the 1999 yield curves.

Table 26 LRSY calculation using the two sets of yield curves (1999 FMP vs. 2015 analysis).

Product 1999 FMP Yields @ CMAI (m³/yr)

2015 analysis Yields @ CMAI

(m³/yr)

Difference (1999-2015)

(m³/yr)

Difference (1999-2015)

(%)

Current Allocation

Hardwood 1,228,494 1,019,993 208,501 -20% 947,000 Softwood Pulp 661,822 353,919 307,903 -87% 661,000 Softwood Sawlog 1,268,044 1,113,086 154,958 -14% 1,265,000 Total Volume 3,158,360 2,486,998 671,361 -27% 2,873,000

10.6 Comparison Summary

Table 27 summarizes the relative influence on HVS expected for each aspect of the analysis.

Table 27 Summary of the relative influence each analysis aspect has on the 2015 HVS

Analysis Aspect

Relative Influence on the

2015 HVS

%

Comments Land Base Definition • Gross area N/A Larger total area • Non-forest areas 1 Slightly more area • Parks and RAN area 0.35 Higher • Managed productive forest areas <1 1.2% higher; contributing to non-timber values • Non-commercial area 2.7 Revised definitions • Steep and unstable slopes N/A Included in Riparian Reserves • Land base deletions N/A Different inventory and net down hierarchies • Disposition area 1 Not applied in 1999 • Treaty land entitlements <1 Less area accounted • Isolated Stands N/A Included in Riparian Reserves • Riparian area reserve <1 Spatial buffers in 2015, in 4% factor in 1999 • Future permanent roads 0.9 0.62% yield (2015), 1.5% area (1999) • SERM withdrawals 4.14 Not applied in 2015/ 4.14% very conservative • Net land base area 7.5 7.5% smaller in 2015 Management assumptions • Operability windows and break-up ages 7 Detailed analysis conducted • Natural vs. Managed yields 27 Detailed analysis conducted • Seral targets <10 Higher targets applied over more spatial units • In block retention 1 Higher net impact assumed (9% gross required) • Interior forest habitat Potential >10 Not yet having an impact in the 2015 analysis • Fires 13.76 Re-analysis threshold used vs 13.76% reduction

• Merchantable growing stock constraint N/A 14.4xHVS (1999) – not clear if HVS impacted, 10xHVS (2015)-not constraining

Relative Influences: = increase of <10%; = decrease of <10%; = little /no change; Green/Red indicate major items. Compared to the 1999 FMP, there are several significant downward pressures on the 2015 modeled HVS (smaller net landbase, reduced yield expectations, and higher non timber constraints) and only one clear upward pressure (removal of the fire reduction factor).



Appendix IV – Detailed Modelling Assumptions Document

Prince Albert FMA Forest Estate Modeling Assumptions

April 2015

Project [1062-4]

Prepared for: Sakâw Askiy Management Inc. Suite 201-118 12th St E Prince Albert, SK S6V 1B6 250.953.2020

Prepared by: Forsite Consultants Ltd. 330 – 42nd Street SW PO Box 2079 Salmon Arm, BC V1E 4R1 250.832.3366

Prince Albert FMA April 2015

Forest Estate Modeling Assumptions i

Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................................................... i List of Figures ......................................................................................................................................................................... i List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................................................... ii List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................................................................... ii

1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................2 1.1 Study Area ................................................................................................................................................................... 2

2 Thematic Data .......................................................................................................................3 2.1 Data Sources ............................................................................................................................................................... 3 2.2 Updates to the Forest Vegetation Inventory .............................................................................................................. 3

3 Land Base Definition ..............................................................................................................8 3.1 Land Base Statistics ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 3.2 Exclusions from the Total FMA Area ......................................................................................................................... 11

3.2.1 Non-FMA Lands ............................................................................................................................................. 11 3.2.2 Dispositions ................................................................................................................................................... 12 3.2.3 Treaty Land Entitlements .............................................................................................................................. 13 3.2.4 Non Forest / Non Productive Forest ............................................................................................................. 13 3.2.1 Existing Permanent Roads, Rails, and Utility Corridors reflected in Forest Cover ......................................... 13

3.3 Exclusions from the Productive Land Base ................................................................................................................ 14 3.3.1 Provincial Parks, Protected Areas, Representative Areas, and Recreation Sites ........................................... 14

3.4 Exclusions from the Managed Forest Land Base ....................................................................................................... 15 3.4.1 Subjective Leave Areas .................................................................................................................................. 15 3.4.2 Steep Slopes .................................................................................................................................................. 16 3.4.3 Non-Commercial Stands ................................................................................................................................ 16 3.4.4 Riparian Buffers (Lakes, rivers, streams) ....................................................................................................... 17 3.4.5 Isolated Area (Uneconomic) .......................................................................................................................... 17 3.4.6 Future Permanent Roads .............................................................................................................................. 17

4 Forest Development............................................................................................................. 18 4.1 Yield Curves and Development Types ....................................................................................................................... 18 4.2 Addressing Blow down from 2010 ............................................................................................................................ 21

5 Management Practices ......................................................................................................... 23 5.1 Silvicultural systems and regeneration assumptions ................................................................................................ 23 5.2 Operability Windows and Transition Rules ............................................................................................................... 23 5.3 Successional pathways and break-up ages ............................................................................................................... 24 5.4 Modelling Analysis Units ........................................................................................................................................... 25

6 Replanning Threshold caused by Natural Disturbance ........................................................... 25

7 Non-timber Objectives and Targets ...................................................................................... 25 7.1.1 Management Units........................................................................................................................................ 28

8 Model Formulation .............................................................................................................. 29 8.1 The Forest Estate Model ........................................................................................................................................... 29 8.2 Harvest Priorities and Target Weightings ................................................................................................................. 29 8.3 Modelling Assumptions ............................................................................................................................................. 30 8.4 Harvest Flow Objectives ............................................................................................................................................ 31 8.5 Long Run Sustainable Yield LRSY Calculation ............................................................................................................ 31

9 References ........................................................................................................................... 33

List of Figures Figure 1. Location and extent of Prince Albert FMA area ........................................................................................................ 2 Figure 2 Contributing Land Base Overview ......................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 3 Species group in the MFLB by land base type ..................................................................................................... 10 Figure 4 Current age class distribution of the MFLB by land base type ............................................................................ 10


Forest Estate Modeling Assumptions ii

Figure 5 Site index distribution in the MFLB by land base type ........................................................................................ 11 Figure 6 Ecological management units and base ecodistricts ........................................................................................... 28

List of Tables Table 1 Data sources .......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Table 2 Land Base Area Netdown Summary ...................................................................................................................... 8 Table 3 Exclusions for Non FMA Lands ............................................................................................................................ 11 Table 4 Dispositions ......................................................................................................................................................... 12 Table 5 Treaty Land Entitlements .................................................................................................................................... 13 Table 6 Non-Forested Lands ............................................................................................................................................ 13 Table 7 Existing Roads, Rails, and Utility Corridors .......................................................................................................... 14 Table 8 Provincial Parks, Protected Areas, Representative Areas, and Recreation Sites. ................................................ 14 Table 9 Subjective Leave Areas ........................................................................................................................................ 15 Table 10 Steep Slopes ........................................................................................................................................................ 16 Table 11 Non-commercial .................................................................................................................................................. 16 Table 12 Riparian Buffers ................................................................................................................................................... 17 Table 13 Isolated Areas (Uneconomic) .............................................................................................................................. 17 Table 14 Approximate Road Building Schedule ................................................................................................................. 18 Table 15 Development Type Classification ........................................................................................................................ 19 Table 16 Provincial Forest Types........................................................................................................................................ 20 Table 17 Yield Groups ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 Table 18 Utilization ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 Table 19 Natural stand regeneration (succession) within Blow Down areas ..................................................................... 22 Table 20 Silviculture Treatment Options ........................................................................................................................... 23 Table 21 Yield Group Assumptions .................................................................................................................................... 23 Table 22 Breakup Age and Natural Succession Rules ........................................................................................................ 24 Table 23 Modelling Analysis Unit Schema .............................................................................................................................. 25 Table 24 Summary of Management Issues and Modeling Approach ................................................................................ 26 Table 25 Group species considered for seral stage requirements ..................................................................................... 27 Table 26 Seral Stage Definitions by Cover Species Group.................................................................................................. 27 Table 27 Ecological management unit areas by contributing classification ....................................................................... 28 Table 28 Model specific assumptions ................................................................................................................................ 30 Table 29 Current volume allocations in the PA FMA area ................................................................................................. 31 Table 30 LRSY Calculated with PA FMA Yield Curves and Utilization Standards ..................................................................... 32

List of Acronyms FMA Forest Management Agreement FMP Forest Management Plan FMPD Forest Management Planning Document FMZ Forest Management Zone NTHLB Non-timber Harvesting Land Base PA FMA Prince Albert FMA PFT Provincial Forest Type SFVI Saskatchewan Forest Vegetation Inventory

THLB Timber Harvesting Land Base TNRG Timberline Natural Resource Group Ltd. TSP Temporary Sample Plots WFVI Weyerhaeuser Forest Vegetation Inventory


Forest Estate Modeling Assumptions Page 2 of 42

1 Introduction

This document outlines the information and assumptions that are proposed to be used in the forest estate modeling for the Prince Alberta (PA) FMA in order to renew the 20-year Forest Management Plan (FMP) Sakâw Askiy Management Inc. is tasked with completing. Sakâw acquired the Prince Albert FMA from Weyerhaeuser Canada on November 1, 2010 and manages the license on behalf of its eight member companies (see www.sakaw.ca for details).

The FMP will ultimately provide strategic-level direction for the forest management in the PA FMA and the forest estate modeling work will help to explore potential management strategies and associated sustainable rates of harvest over a 200-year planning horizon. The forest estate modeling will also provide a 20-year tactical plan to guide Sakâw staff for the development of annual operating plans. The FMP and tactical plan will be revised and updated every 10 years.

Information on the detailed requirements for forest estate modeling can be found in the 2007 Forest Management Planning Document (FMPD) produced by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment – Forest Service (Saskatchewan, 2007).

1.1 Study Area

The Prince Albert FMA area (PAFMA) is approximately 3.35 million hectares in north-central Saskatchewan’s boreal forest north of the city of Prince Albert (Error! Reference source not found.).

Figure 1. Location and extent of Prince Albert FMA area

http://www.sakaw.ca/



2 Thematic Data

2.1 Data Sources

Many different data layers were compiled to provide input into the forest estate modeling (Table 1). The final resultant was developed in-house by Forsite using the ESRI ArcGIS software suite and it was used to summarize the statistical information presented in this report. The use of these data layers is described in more detail in subsequent sections.

Table 1 Data sources Data Description Forsite Coverage Name Data Source Description Vintage

Administrative Line Work FMA Boundary FMA_Boundary SK Forest Service Outer boundary of the PA FMA 2013 Forest Management Zones

FMU SK Forest Service Outer boundary of the forest management zones within PA FMA

2013

Softwood Operating Zones

SW_OP_ZONE SK Forest Service Outer boundary of the operating areas within PA FMA

2013

Hardwood Operating Zones

HW_OP_ZONE SK Forest Service Outer boundary of the operating areas within PA FMA

2013

Exclusion Exclusion SK Forest Service Areas where forest management is excluded 2013 Treaty Land Entitlements

TLE SK Forest Service Area where treaty land entitlements have been made.

2013

Dispositions Dispositions_Jan2013_Draft SK Forest Service Areas where land dispositions exist 2013 Subjective Leave Areas

Subjective_Leave Heather Patterson, Sakaw

Expired exclusion that Sakaw knows it will not harvest in

2013

Inventories Forest vegetation inventory

SFVI_UTM_Inv_2013 Forsite Derived Vegetation inventory for the PA FMA created using SVFI and old UTM inventories.

2013

Historic and Planned Cut blocks

PAFMA_Cut99toCurrent, 2010_Updated_Actual_Harvest, 2011_Updated_Actual_Harvest, 2012_Updated_Actual_Harvest, Planned_Harvest_2014_2019

Heather Patterson, Sakaw

Consolidated Cut blocks feature 2013

Regeneration Inventory

RSI2006_2011 Heather Patterson, Sakaw

Areas where planting and regeneration monitoring occurred

2013

Fire Boundaries Fire_Current SK Forest Service Wildfire burned areas to year 2012 2013 Consolidated Linear Buffers

LinearFeatures Forsite Derived Consolidated feature of linear buffers (Roads, Rails, Transmission, Pipeline)

2013

Ecodistricts and Regions

Ecodistrict SK Forest Service Ecodistrict boundaries 2013

Management guidance Riparian buffers Riparian_Buffers Forsite Derived Buffers of lakes, wetlands, and rivers 2014 Isolated stands ISOLATED Forsite Derived Productive areas <5ha and >=100m from

other productive areas 2014

Visually Sensitive Areas

PA_VSA Heather Patterson, Sakaw

Areas around specified lakes, hillsides, and Rivers

2013

Slope >30 Slope Forsite Derived Areas with steep slopes (>30%) 2013 Caribou Admin SK Forest Service Natural Forest Pattern Management Unit

NFP_Unit Forsite Derived Amalgamation of EcoDistricts into appropriately sized for establishing landscape level event size, old forest retention and interior forest targets

2014

2.2 Updates to the Forest Vegetation Inventory

Efforts were made to update the forest vegetation inventory (SFVI) database (Table 1) to reflect natural and human induced disturbances to the end of 2013 (2014 logging will be implemented in model). The older inventory datasets were used to reduce the number of non-typed or missing data polygons and thus, providing a more accurate estimate of the forest estate modeling results.



The starting point for the forest cover inventory used for this project was the 1:15000 Weyerhaeuser Inventory converted to SFVI in 2006 –and provided by Saskatchewan Forest Service to Forsite in 2013. The photos used for this inventory were captured between 1998 and 2004 with interpretation completed in 2004. Temporary sample plot (TSP) data was collected in 2005.

The following changes and updates were made to this base inventory:

1. Inventory Consolidation - Where no information was present in the SFVI inventory, where mistyped polygons within fires, or where the SFVI did not cover the extent of the FMA boundary, information from various sources was used, namely:

a. Where available, regeneration survey (RSI) information was used to assign species, and density information for polygons typed as open productive (FCT_CODE in [10000, 10100, 10200, 10300]). To project crown closure for these young stands, the area-weighted average stocking % for inventory polygons was first calculated and then inventory polygons with a stocking of >=60% were assigned as a C density crown closure while anything less was assigned as B density. No previously logged areas were allowed to remain as A density because most of these areas have legal obligations to reforest them or silviculture funds are in place to address them. Where silviculture survey information does exist, it indicates a very high (95%+) rate of regeneration success.

b. Next, old UTM inventory was used to fill areas where no or only partial information was provided by RSI or SFVI information (FCT_CODE in [9,000, 10,000, 10,100, 10,200, 10,300, 200,000 and to fill mist-typed polygons within the 2002 Pasture fire (burn over areas type as FCT_CODE=3700 or “Clearing”).

The following table summarizes the area associated with each of the inventory sources used and mentioned above:

Inventory Source Area (ha)

SFVI 3,129,768 Old UTM (typically in exclusion areas) 207,681 Regeneration Survey Information 12,109

Total 3,349,559

c. With information from various sources listed above, effort was made to assign PFTs (PFT_PLAN_2015) using logic in the planning manual where SFVI was either missing or assigned to generic open productive PFT types. Yield Assignment

2. Yield Assignment

a. Development types and site index assigned in Lane Gelhorn’s 2008 growth and yield dataset (using Poly_id as link) were transferred into the planning inventory. This was done to align with Lane’s Growth and Yield work as close as possible. Any polygon not assigned by this was calculated with the following logic:

i. Site Index - Calculated site index using equations developed by Cieszewski et al. (1993).

ii. Development Type – Any polygon not assigned by Lane’s dataset was assigned using relationships with Provincial Forest Types (PFT_PLAN_2015) as follows:

Provincial Forest Type Development Type

TAB, AOH HW HSM HjP PMW jPH HSM HxS SMW xSH



Provincial Forest Type Development Type

BSL bS JLP jP BSJ jPbS WSF wSbF Any Stand with >10% TL tL11

b. Assign Site Productivity Class – Using the consolidated Site Index Field (SI_Combine), site class was assigned following:

Site Class Stand Leading Species

wS bS jP tL tA bP wB

I >20.6 >10.7 >17.9 >8.9 >19.2 >19.0 >19.3 II 14.8-20.6 9.4-10.7 12.9-17.9 8.5-8.9 17.1-19.2 16.8-19.0 17.1-19.3 III 6.7-14.7 7.7-9.3 11.9-12.8 7.8-17.0 7.4-16.7 7.6-17.0 IV(Unproductive) <6.7 <7.7 <11.9 <8.5 <7.8 <7.4 <7.6

c. Assign Density Class – Using the crown closure information where available, crown

closure class was assigned following: Class Crown Closure

X 0-6% A 6-24%* B 26-55% C 56%-80% D > 80%

*Low Crown Closure (<=25%): In the productive forest landbase (TYPE=”FOR”) there are areas with a crown closure <=25% (or has no data) of which some is >40 yrs old and some is <=40 yrs old. Much of the young area has a history of burn over or cut over. Satellite imagery (Bing and recent ortho-imagery served at www.envgis.gov.sk.ca) checking indicated these areas seemed to have high densities of young stems. Since A Density (<25%) stands are not considered to contribute to the Net Area, this area was at risk of not being included in the land base even though once these stands reach a merchantable age, they will likely have higher crown closures. Therefore, the following assumptions were used to ensure young stands with low crown closures and recent fire history were not excluded:

i. Stands <= 40 yrs of age not excluded for low crown closure. If the area was previously harvested, silviculture survey information (where available) was used to determine whether it was assigned to B or C density (see 1a above). All area within fires were assigned to B density.

ii. Stands >40 yrs of age were excluded from the net landbase iii. if a stand was between 6 and 25% CC AND <=40 years old it was assigned to

Density B class (otherwise stays as Density A class). Note that densities for stands with harvest history were estimated using RSI stocking % above in item #1.b.

d. Assign Yield Groups – Assigned yield groups following stratification criteria for Development type, Forest Management Zone (FMZ), Site Class, and Crown Closure (see Table 17 on Page 20)

3. Inventory Depletions for disturbances since inventory photography capture

b. Added fire boundaries not already in inventory (1998+) and year of fire:



i. Fires <150ha: assumed to have 0% survival so Age_2015 was set to 0 at year of fire.

ii. Fires >150 ha assumed to have 28% survival; So 72% of each fire area was selected and had Age_2015 set to zero. Priority areas to ‘burn’ were:

1. Priority 1 – productive polygons, mature softwoods (>=71 years old) (S,SH)

2. Priority 2 – productive polygons, immature softwoods (<71 years old) (S,SH)

3. Priority 3 – hardwood leading mixedwoods (HS) 4. Priority 4 – hardwood stands (H) 5. Priority 5 – Open productive with no species 6. Priority 6 – non-forested polygons

This sort was felt to broadly reflect the fact that hardwood areas tend to be the most likely to survive as remnant patches in fires. (September, 2005, D Andison, pg 31)

c. Added 2011 blow down event polygons and severity rating to file

i. Where ENVIR_CODE = H and N/A set age to 0 at 2011 (AGE_2015 to 4) but applied extended regeneration delays (as per table below). The N/A code meant that the area had previously been impacted by other events as well so it was assumed to have been heavily impacted. No shifts in development type are modeled because they are not expected to be significant.

Development Type

Applied Delay

wSbF 0

bS 5

jPbS 10

jP 10

jPH 10

HjP 10

HW 5

HxS 10

xSH 5

tL11 5

ii. Low and Moderately impacted areas will be addressed through yield curve reductions (50% volume reduction for Medium, and a 10% reduction for Low).

d. Added logged block boundaries (1999-2013) and year of harvest to file.

i. Ages were reset to zero at year of harvest.

e. Used the SFVI disturbance table to adjust ages (AGE_2015) where cutover or fire impacted stands (not captured by fire history feature) if the disturbance year was greater (more recent) than the photo year (FEATURE_METADATA.FEATURE_SOURCE_DATE).

f. 2015 UPDATE: In 2015, once all the 2013 harvest areas were rectified and updated approved 2014 harvest available, those areas were depleted from the inventory using a GIS “select by location” approach. This means that block boundaries were not inserted into the inventory and exact harvest boundaries were not reflected. This simplified



modeling and resulted in a better representation of the initial condition for modeling with an initial year of 2015.



3 Land Base Definition

This section describes the assumptions used to support landbase definitions. Four key landbase definitions are made:

1. Total FMA Area: the gross area within the legal FMA boundaries. 2. Productive Forest Land Base (PFLB): the subset of the total area that is crown forested land. It

is defined by removing all Permanent Exclusions from the gross FMA area. 3. Managed Forest Land Base (MFLB): the subset of the PFLB that is allowed to contribute toward

meeting both timber and non-timber values. It consists of all Partial Exclusion areas and the Net landbase as defined in the FMPD Appendix 6, section 13.2.4.

4. Net Area: the subset of the MFLB where harvesting has occurred or could occur in the future. The Net Area excludes areas that are inoperable, uneconomic, or are otherwise off-limits to timber harvesting.

The land base summary is shown in Table 2 and in Figure 2. Other descriptive statistics of the land base are detailed in Section 3.1.

Table 2 Land Base Area Netdown Summary

Land Base element Total Area

(ha) Effective

Area (ha)* % Total

Area % MFLB

Total Crown area (PA FMA) 3,349,533 3,349,533

Less:

Non FMA Lands (IR, VILNC, Patent Lands, Misc. leases) 49,569 49,569 1.5%

Dispositions (Buffered and Non-Buffered) 16,116 14,279 0.4%

Treaty Land Entitlements 3,588 3,579 0.1%

Non Forest / Non Productive Forest 1,527,837 1,492,202 44.5%

Roads, Rail, Utilities Corridors 1,626 1,207 0.0%

Productive Forest Land Base (PFLB) 1,788,697 53.4%

Less:

Reserved Forest (RAN, Weyco Release, Rec Areas, Prov. Parks) 131,223 84,790 2.5%

Managed Forest land Base (MFLB) 1,703,907 50.9% 100.0%

Less:

Subjective Leave Areas Around Developments 1,587 816 0.0% 0.0%

Steep Slopes 7,246 3,923 0.1% 0.2%

Non-Commercial - Low Density 49,734 46,692 1.4% 2.7%

Non-Commercial - Problem Types 18,413 8,711 0.3% 0.5%

Non-Commercial - "Larchy" 146,307 120,750 3.6% 7.1%

Non-Commercial - Low Site Productivity 96,035 48,988 1.5% 2.9%

Isolated Areas (Uneconomic) 6,121 6,121 0.2% 0.4%

Spatial Net Area 1,467,907 43.8% 86.1%

Less Non Spatial Netdowns:

Riparian (lakes, rivers, streams) 53,643 12,663 0.4% 0.7%

Stand Level Retention (Insular – 9%)

132,112 3.9% 7.8%

Effective Net Area 1,323,142 39.5% 77.7%

Less Future Non-Spatial Netdowns:

Future permanent roads (0.62% of Net Area) 11,000 8,800 0.3% 0.5%

Effective Future Net Area 1,314,342 39.2% 77.1%

*Effective netdown area represents the area that was actually removed as a result of a given factor. Removals are applied in the order shown above, thus areas removed lower on the list do not contain areas that overlap with factors that occur higher on the list. For example, lake buffers netdown does not include non-forested area.



Figure 2 Contributing Land Base Overview

3.1 Land Base Statistics

This section of the document describes the current state of the FMA and provides descriptions and statistics useful for understanding timber supply analysis results.

Approximately 53% of the total area of the PA FMA is considered productive forest (Table 2) while the other 47% of the land base is considered non-productive (e.g. water bodies, flooded lands, pastures, muskeg) or Non-FMA (e.g. First Nations Reserves, Private land, etc.). Within the MFLB, approximately 82% is considered the net area available for timber harvesting (represents 42% of the total FMA area).

Within the net area, approximately 56% of the Net Area is occupied by softwood dominated stands (30%-BSJ&BSL, 23%-JLP, 4%-WSF), 27% hardwood dominated stands, and 17% by mixedwood stands (Figure 3).



Figure 3 Species group in the MFLB by land base type

The age class distribution shown below indicates the largest portion of the net land base exists in age classes younger than 50 years and between 80 and 140 years (Figure 4). This age class distribution is not typical for a fire-driven landscape and the goal is to create a landscape that more closely resembles a 70-year fire cycle. Detailed statistics for area distribution over the management units, species groups and seral stages are included in Appendix A of this document.

Figure 4 Current age class distribution of the MFLB by land base type

This site index distribution (Figure 5) shows the net land base is skewed toward the higher site indexes. Site indexes below 7 were always excluded from the net land base. The largest portion of the



net land base falls into the 13m site class and the weighted average site index for the entire net land base is 14.2m.

Figure 5 Site index distribution in the MFLB by land base type

3.2 Exclusions from the Total FMA Area

In the PA FMA, the lands which Sakâw does not have harvesting rights or are otherwise non forest are excluded from the modeling analysis. These lands do not contribute to the forest management objectives.

3.2.1 Non-FMA Lands

Non FMA lands are those lands that are contained within the outer boundary of the PA FMA but are part of the FMA (no harvesting rights). Table 3 shows these areas and their associated areas.

Table 3 Exclusions for Non FMA Lands

Type Description Total area (ha) Effective Netdown

Area (ha)

Indian Reserve Bittern Lake I.R. #218 6,899 6,899 Indian Reserve McKay I.R. #209 1,361 1,361 Indian Reserve Montreal Lake I.R. #106 6,021 6,021 Indian Reserve Moosomin I.R. #112E 129 129 Indian Reserve Moosomin I.R. #112F 582 582 Indian Reserve Morin Lake I.R. #217 14,099 14,099 Indian Reserve Pelican Lake I.R. #191-A 126 126 Indian Reserve Pelican Lake I.R. #191C 3,143 3,143 Miscellaneous Big River Nursery 98 98 Miscellaneous Bodmin Hill 74 74 Patent Patent 1,059 1,059 Patent Big River 46 46 Village/Northern Community Chitek Lake 247 247 Village/Northern Community Dore Lake Community 566 566 Village/Northern Community Nesslin Lake 3 3 Village/Northern Community Sled Lake 317 317 Village/Northern Community Timber Bay 465 465



Type Description Total area (ha) Effective Netdown

Area (ha)

Village/Northern Community Village of Candle Lake 13,828 13,828 Village/Northern Community Weyakwin 506 506

Total 49,569 49,569

3.2.2 Dispositions

Specific types of dispositions have a 100m buffer around them with no harvesting. All others have just the footprint removed. Table 4 shows the types of dispositions, whether or not they were buffered and the areas associated with them.

Table 4 Dispositions

Description Buffered by

100m Total Area

(ha)

Effective Netdown Area (ha)

Agriculture

319 318 Airstrip

24 5

Cabin Yes 68 67 Campground Yes 99 93 Commercial

3 3

Commercial Lease Yes 217 112 Commercial Outfitters Yes 241 236 Ecotourism

5 5

Fibre Optic Cable

88 47 Foreshore Installation

388 352

Gas Station

51 51 Golf Course Yes 54 11 Industrial Production

67 62

Institutional

60 60 Marina

455 67

Misc Use Unspecified

206 190 Multi Use Unspecified

439 432

Oil & Gas Access Road

65 65 Outfitter Yes 1 1 Powerline

440 440

Powerline Easement

565 375 Private Yes 46 2 Prov. Munic. Governments

450 449

Quarry

204 179 Recreational Yes 388 388 Residential

15 10

Sand And Gravel

2,404 2,304 Sawmill

5 0

Sewage

3 0 Sewage_Lagoon

3 3

Ski Hill Yes 81 13 Storage

2 2

Storage/Maint. St/Compound

106 106 Subdivision Yes 588 55 Traditional Resource Use Yes 1,449 1,448 Trail/Warm Up Shelter

16 16

Trapper Cabin Yes 2 2 Unspecified

492 492

Voltage Reg/Sew Lag/Ldfill

45 3 Waste Disp/Sew Lag/Ldfill

178 32



Description Buffered by

100m Total Area

(ha)


Well Head

1 1 Wild Rice

5,784 5,784

Total 16,116 14,279

3.2.3 Treaty Land Entitlements

Treaty Land Entitlements (TLE) are areas intended to address First Nation treaties rights. These areas have not yet been formally removed from the FMA but do restrict forest harvesting in the short term. They have been removed from the timber harvesting landbase for purposes of determining timber supply. Table 5 shows the areas associated with the lands.

Table 5 Treaty Land Entitlements

Type Name Total

Area (ha)

Effective Netdown Area

(ha)

Treaty Land Entitlements Pelican Lake 3,588 3,578

3.2.4 Non Forest / Non Productive Forest

All land classified as non-forest, non-productive (lakes, swamps, rock, pasture, etc.) or non-typed in the forest cover files were accounted for and removed from the total area. The description and areas used in the netdown process are listed in Table 6.

Table 6 Non-Forested Lands

Description Total area

(ha)


Treed Muskeg 770,554 761,956 Treed Rock 0 0 Clear Muskeg 71,145 69,965 Clear Rock 1 1 Brushland 57,459 55,294 Meadow 108,784 107,873 Clearing 17,445 15,342 Sand 126 117 Timber Non Prod 135,867 135,497 NP Burnover 3,945 3,945 Pasture 483 441 Flooded 21,772 21,517 Water 327,803 308,141 Not Typed* 12,453 12,112

Total 1,527,837 1,492,202 *efforts were made to type as many polygons as possible and the updates were included in the current forest vegetation inventory (2013).

3.2.1 Existing Permanent Roads, Rails, and Utility Corridors reflected in Forest Cover

The area of the existing permanent roads not already reflected in the forest cover has been determined based on the road line feature and right of way width for each road type (Table 7). Many existing roads were already accounted for in the forest cover and were removed from the productive forest through non-forest designations in the forest cover.



Table 7 Existing Roads, Rails, and Utility Corridors

Description Buffer

width (m) Gross

Area (ha)


Roads - Improved Bush Roads 40 1,565 1,162 Transmission Corridors 40 61 46

Total 1,626 1,207

3.3 Exclusions from the Productive Land Base

These are productive forest areas where Sakaw does not have harvesting rights however due to the management intent for these areas (Reserves) they contribute to the non-timber values of the forest management objectives (i.e. the forest estate modeling analysis takes into account these areas when attempting to fulfill the retention targets for the old and very old seral stages). Currently, provisions to the NFP draft standard have allowed for the use of RAN areas to count towards old & very old forest targets.

3.3.1 Provincial Parks, Protected Areas, Representative Areas, and Recreation Sites

These lands were excluded from the net landbase and do not contribute to non-timber forest management objectives (i.e. they are not used to meet old seral objectives). A summary of these lands and the area they occupy is shown in Table 8.

Table 8 Provincial Parks, Protected Areas, Representative Areas, and Recreation Sites.

Type Name Total

Area (ha)


Protected Area Bazill Wildlife Refuge 1 1

Protected Area Nipekamew Sand Cliffs 549 472

Provincial Park Rock Island Wildlife Refuge 2 0

Provincial Park Candle Lake Prov Park 8,364 5,263

Provincial Park Clarence-Steepbank Prov Park 16,350 11,629

Provincial Park Great Blue Heron Provincial Park 8,570 4,898

Provincial Park Narrow Hills Prov Park 58,632 40,846

Representative Area Network Budd Lake RAN 17,890 5,433

Representative Area Network Caribou Flats 9,597 7,055

Representative Area Network Selenite Point 3,756 3,342

Weyerhauser Release Big Island Dore Lake 717 676

Weyerhauser Release Candle Lake NW Shore 183 57

Weyerhauser Release Michel Point Gap Dore Lake 252 239

Weyerhauser Release Smith Island Dore Lake 176 152

Recreation Site Beaupre Creek 20 9

Recreation Site Birchbark Lake 26 25

Recreation Site Bittern Lake 123 106

Recreation Site Bug Lake 25 20

Recreation Site Camp 10 Lake 50 31

Recreation Site Chitek Lake 734 461

Recreation Site Cowan Dam 13 10

Recreation Site Delaronde Lake (Zig Zag Bay) 746 564



Type Name Total

Area (ha)


Recreation Site Dore Lake 298 234

Recreation Site East Trout - Nipekamew Lakes 576 427

Recreation Site Elaine Lake 86 59

Recreation Site Hackett Lake 64 51

Recreation Site Heritage Lake 12 9

Recreation Site Island Lake 128 111

Recreation Site Jayjay Lake 4 0

Recreation Site Little Bear Lake 176 1

Recreation Site MacLennan River 14 107

Recreation Site Montreal River 29 10

Recreation Site Ness Lake 11 16

Recreation Site Nesslin Lake 511 9

Recreation Site Piprell Lake 69 407

Recreation Site Shell Lake 32 50

Recreation Site Shirley Lake 42 26

Recreation Site Smoothstone Lake 9 38

Recreation Site Top Lake 5 3

Recreation Site Waskesiu River 8 5

Recreation Site Weyakwin Lake (Ramsey Bay) 590 4

Recreation Site Whiteswan Lake (Whelan Bay) 1,784 1,479

Total 131,223 84,333

3.4 Exclusions from the Managed Forest Land Base

Within the Managed Forest Land Base there are areas not eligible or suitable for forest harvesting but all are used to contribute to non-timber objectives such as landscape biodiversity (i.e. the forest estate modeling analysis counts these areas when attempting to fulfill the retention targets for the old and very old seral stages). The sections below describe the lands removed for these reasons.

3.4.1 Subjective Leave Areas

Subjective leave areas are exclusions that have expired but due to established and historical public use of these areas, Sakâw has no intention of operating within them. The names and areas associated with subjective leave areas are provided in Table 9.

Table 9 Subjective Leave Areas

Description Name Total

Area (ha)


Subjective Leave Area Dore Lake 1,147 563

Subjective Leave Area Swan Lakes 441 253

Total 1,587 816



3.4.2 Steep Slopes

Steep slopes are technically open to harvest but are not pursued on the basis that they are inoperable with current equipment configurations. A Digital Elevation Model was used to identify where slopes were greater than 30%. Table 10 shows the areas associated with these slope classes.

Table 10 Steep Slopes

Description Total Area (ha) Effective Netdown Area (ha)

Slopes > 30% 7,246 3,923

3.4.3 Non-Commercial Stands

In the current inventory, there are stands considered non-commercial because of low stocking densities (i.e. =<25% crown closure for mature stands) or low growing growth rates that make them uneconomic. There are also stands with species compositions that are considered non-commercial (Manitoba Maple, Green Ash, or White Elm, Tamarack).

Table 11 provides a summary of the non-commercial stand areas.

Table 11 Non-commercial

Description Total area

(ha)


All mature stands with A Density Stands (<26% crown closure) > 40 yrs old 49,734 46,692

wS,bF,jP,jP/tA,wS/tA,tA/wS stands established prior to 1931 and < 7.5m tall 3,704 196

wS,bF,jP,jP/tA,wS/tA,tA/wS stands established prior to 1901 and < 12.5m tall 2,870 464

tA or tAjP stands established prior to 1941 and < 7.5m tall 2,477 850

tA or tAjP stands established prior to 1910 and < 12.5m tall 2,114 44

bS stands with B density established prior to 1950 and < 7.5m tall 6,223 6,176

bS stands with C or D density established prior to 1911 and < 7.5m tall 70 29

bS/jP stands with B density established prior to 1911 and < 12.5 tall 955 951

bS/jP stands with C density established prior to 1851 and < 12.5 tall 0 0

All stands with >=30% tL 44,796 20,698

Any Stand with Non-commercial species as leading (gA, mM, wE, bO) 0 0

Low Productivity Stands (wS<6.7, bS<7.7, jP<11.9, tL<8.5, tA<7.8, bP<7.4, wB <7.6) 197,547 149,040

Total 310,489 225,140

Low productivity stand definitions were taken from the 2008 Timberline growth and yield work used in this project. The jack pine site index cutoff was adjusted upwards from the published value because this curve was altered to exclude additional low volume plots in order to ensure it reached the minimum merchantable volume (60m³/ha).



3.4.4 Riparian Buffers (Lakes, rivers, streams)

Mapped lakes, rivers, and streams were spatially buffered and removed. Buffers were created as follows:

1. Category 1 - Large lakes (≥5 ha), rivers, and all mapped streams were buffered with an effective reserve width of 17.5 m (10 m no harvest zone plus 25% of 30 m limited harvest zone).

2. Category 2 - High slope areas (>15%) on small water bodies (0.5 to 5.0) were buffered with an effective reserve width of 5 m (25% of 20 m average limited harvest zone). The areas of small water bodies next to >15% slopes were identified using a >15% slope theme created from the digital elevation model (DEM).

Due to the number of very small polygons (slivers >0.1ha) these buffers created in the modeling resultant, the decision was made to convert the spatial buffers into a ‘percent of managed land base in riparian’. This riparian retention % was treated in the same manner as in block retention (non-spatial area reserves in model).

Table 12 summarizes the riparian buffer areas by type.

Table 12 Riparian Buffers

Description Riparian Reserve

(m)

Incremental Limited Harvest

Zone (m)

Retention within limited harvest

zone (%)

Total Effective

Buffer (m)

Total area (ha)


Lakes ≥5 ha, Rivers, and Streams 10 30 25 17.5 53,643 12,653

Lakes ≥.5 and <5 ha adjacent to steep slopes 0 20* 25 5

Total 53,643 12,653

* 20m is the average of width of the 0-40m limited harvest area.

3.4.5 Isolated Area (Uneconomic)

Isolated stands are those stands that are geographically too distant from other stands / blocks to be economically considered for harvest. The criteria used to identify isolated areas was patches of productive forest <5 ha and > 100 m from other contributing productive forest.

Table 13 Isolated Areas (Uneconomic) Description Total

Area (ha) Effective Netdown

Area (ha)

Isolated Stands 6,159 6,121

3.4.6 Future Permanent Roads

Future cutblocks will require construction of new permanent roads in addition to the existing road network. This reduction in forest area was accounted for by reducing the yield expected from all future managed stands by 0.62% (e.g. ### m³/ha * .9938). This value reflects the proportion of all currently productive natural stands expected to be converted to permanent roads in the future and was determined by estimating future road construction required to fully access the PA FMA (Table 14). The right-of-way width for future permanent roads was assumed at 40m. Furthermore, not all roads will occupy currently productive areas. The area of planned permanent roads was divided by the effective



timber harvesting landbase to derive an anticipated impact to be applied to all future stands (11,000 ha future roads * 80% estimate of productive forest / 1,399,157 ha effective THLB = 0.63%).

Table 14 Approximate Road Building Schedule Decade Estimated Road

building schedule (km/decade)

Vegetation control width (m)

Road Area (m²/Decade)

Gross Road Area (ha/Decade)

Effective Road Area (ha/Decade)

1 750 40 30,000,000 3,000 2,400 2 750 40 30,000,000 3,000 2,400 3 500 40 20,000,000 2,000 1,600 4 500 40 20,000,000 2,000 1,600 5 250 40 10,000,000 1,000 800

Total 2750 km built 110,000,000 11,000 8,800

4 Forest Development

4.1 Yield Curves and Development Types

To reduce the complexity and volume of information in the timber supply analysis, individual stands were aggregated into ‘Development Types’ based on forest management zone, stand composition, site index, and density class. Each Development Type has an associated yield table that provides the net merchantable volume available for harvest at various stand ages.

In 2008, Timberline Natural Resource Group Ltd. (TNRG) developed a set of empirical natural stand yield curves for the PA FMA (Gelhorn 2008). These yield curves were developed for eighteen yield groups - stratified based on Development Type and a combination of Forest Management Zone (FMZ), site productivity class, and density class. Stratification was based on the latest Weyerhaeuser Forest Vegetation Inventory (WFVI; 1:15,000) completed by Weyerhaeuser Saskatchewan between 1999 and 2005. Over 6500 temporary sample plots (TSP) were used to fit the yield curves using empirical multi-step volume-age (site productivity/density class) regression. Separate estimates of total volume, softwood volume, hardwood volume, component species volume and piece size estimates were produced for each yield group under three utilization scenarios. Product-specific merchandised curves were also prepared for a custom utilization scenario proposed by Domtar.

For this project, the Gelhorn (2008) work was updated to reflect Sakâw’s utilization standards and harvesting practices. Minor modifications were made in the compilation process to reflect differences in utilization and pulp/sawlog distribution. Otherwise, existing plot data, compilation, stratification, Development Types and the general process of regression model development were largely the same. This work is fully documented in Forsite’s January 2014 report titled “Yield Curve Development for the Prince Albert FMA Area - Technical Report“.

The new yield curves employed the following assumptions:

All TSPs from the TNRG 2008 project were used without consideration of recent harvest or other disturbance (i.e., to represent stands of all ages/eras).

Twenty yield groups were prepared following the 10 Development Types used in Gelhorn (2008) (see Table 15). The DT containing all stands with >10% tamarack was split to identify stands with more than 30% tL.



Stands with ≥30% tL were excluded from the net harvestable landbase

All mature ‘A’ density stands were excluded from the net harvestable landbase.

Site productivity and crown closure classification followed methods from Gelhorn (2008).

A stand decline function of 1% per year was applied based on a terminal age defined for each Development Type. This was not applied to pure black spruce and “larchy” types (bS and tL in Table 15).

Tree volumes were compiled based on the Sakâw utilization specifications described for softwoods and hardwoods (Table 18).

Sort and species volumes calculated for plots were adjusted to reflect net merchantable volume by using net factors for the appropriate C-zone / species combination (Saskatchewan 1985) for endemic natural disturbances (e.g. insects), but not for the residuals retained within harvest events.

For softwoods, the presence of conks/spiral grain/mistletoe on a tree no longer causes this volume to be classed as pulp. For hardwoods, the use of tree defect codes was replaced by the use of C-Zone net factors to estimate net volumes.

Table 15 Development Type Classification Development Type Description

HW (611 samples)

Hardwoods: Softwoods represent less than 20% of multiple layer species composition

HjP (63 samples)

Hardwood-leading mixedwood with jP: Softwoods represent 20 to 44% of multiple layer species composition jP proportion exceeds the sum of wS, bF, and bS proportions tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

HxS (169 samples)

Hardwood-leading mixedwood with wS, bF or bS: Softwoods represent 20 to 44% of multiple layer species composition jP proportion does not exceed the sum of wS, bF, and bS proportions tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

jPH (75 samples)

jP-dominated mixedwood: Softwoods represent 45 to 74% of multiple layer species composition jP proportion exceeds the sum of wS, bF, and bS proportions tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

xSH (99 samples)

wS, bF, or bS-dominated mixedwood: Softwoods represent 45 to 74% of multiple layer species composition jP proportion does not exceed the sum of wS, bF, and bS proportions tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

bS (436 samples)

bS-dominated softwoods: Softwoods represent at least 75% of multiple layer species composition bS represents at least 80% of softwood component OR bS represents at least 70% of softwood component and jP represents less than 15% of multiple layer species OR bS represents at least 60% of softwood component and jP is absent tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

jP (451 samples)

jP-dominated softwoods: Softwoods represent at least 75% of multiple layer species composition jP represents at least 80% of softwood component OR jP represents at least 70% of softwood component and bS represents less than 15% of multiple layer species OR jP represents at least 60% of softwood component and bS is absent tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition



Development Type Description

jPbS (361 samples)

jP and bS-dominated softwoods: Softwoods represent at least 75% of multiple layer species composition The sum of jP and bS proportions represent at least 50% of multiple layer composition tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

wSbF (104 samples)

wS or bF-dominated softwoods: Softwoods represent at least 75% of multiple layer species composition The sum of wS and bF proportions are equal to or exceed the jP proportion tL is less than 11% of multiple layer species composition

tL11 (132 samples)

“Larchy” stands: tL is at least 11% of multiple layer species composition

Note: this classification was adopted from Gelhorn (2008)

Development Type is the first of two levels of inventory aggregation accepted under the FMPD. The second level is Provincial Forest Type (PFT) which is used to summarize and report activities for all forest management plans and to facilitate comparisons across multiple licence areas. There are 10 PFTs (Table 16) for the PA FMA. Since an ideal linkage between Development Types and PFTs is not always possible (i.e., Development Types nested within PFTs) because of the tL>10% DT, each polygon was assigned to both a Development Type and a PFT. It should be noted that the PFT’s used in the 2008 G&Y work (and here) are slightly different from those in the SFVI because the G&Y PFTs use only the merchantable stand layer (>=15 m) to assign PFT for mature stands emphasizing current growing stock – while the SFVI considers all stand layers.

Table 16 Provincial Forest Types Provincial

Forest Type

Broad Description of Provincial Forest Type Total

Productive area (ha)

Effective Net Area

(ha)

AOH Any other hardwood dominated hardwood stand except TAB 407,183 370,334

BSJ Black spruce and jackpine dominated mixed softwood stands 54,629 51,283

BSL Black spruce or tamarack/larch dominated softwood stands 119,458 95,451

HPM Hardwood with pine mixedwood 287,764 242,601

HSM Hardwood with spruce (black spruce, white spruce, balsam fir, and tamarack/larch) mixedwood

341,760 284,500

JLP Jackpine or lodgepole pine dominated softwood stands 61,435 38,952

PMW Pine dominated mixedwood stands 214,455 179,678

SMW Spruce dominated mixedwood stands 184,735 34,660

TAB Trembling aspen or white birch dominated hardwood stands 57,666 50,144

WSF White spruce or balsam fir dominated softwood stands 59,612 48,934

Total 1,788,697 1,396,538

Development types were stratified by additional criteria where statistical differences were found (e.g. by forest management zone, site productivity class, or density class). This ultimately split the 10 Development Types into the 20 yield curves shown in Table 17. The highlighted columns indicate the stratification variable that was applicable to each of the development types.

Table 17 Yield Groups

Yield Group

Description Provincial

Forest Type

Development Type

FMZ Site

Class Crown Closure

Total Productive Area (ha)

Effective Net Area

(ha)

1 1_H_HW_Density_B TAB, AOH HW 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B 95,069 88,969

2 1_H_HW_Density_CD TAB, AOH HW 1, 2, 3 I, II, III C, D 305,719 281,365



3 2_HS_HjP_Density_B HPM HjP 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B 27,275 25,823

4 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD HPM HjP 1, 2, 3 I, II, III C, D 26,982 25,460

5 3_SH_jPH_Density_B PMW jPH 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B 30,834 21,611

6 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD PMW jPH 1, 2, 3 I, II, III C, D 28,618 17,341

7 4_HS_HxS_Density_B HSM HxS 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B 28,972 24,777

8 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD HSM HxS 1, 2, 3 I, II, III C, D 87,371 70,674

9 5_SH_SxH_Density_B SMW xSH 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B 15,077 13,541

10 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD SMW xSH 1, 2, 3 I, II, III C, D 42,988 35,393

11 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor BSL bS 1, 2, 3 II,III B, C, D 180,207 161,626

12 6_S_bS_SiteGood BSL bS 1, 2, 3 I B, C, D 93,474 80,975

13 7_S_jP_SitePoor JLP jP 1, 2, 3 III B, C, D 90,573 83,777

14 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod JLP jP 1, 2, 3 I,II B, C, D 221,688 200,723

15 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor BSJ jPbS 1, 2, 3 III B, C, D 49,228 27,574

16 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod BSJ jPbS 1, 2, 3 I,II B, C, D 162,202 152,104

17 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 WSF wSbF 2,3 I, II, III B, C, D 20,087 18,023

18 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 WSF wSbF 1 I, II, III B, C, D 34,806 32,121

19 10_S_tL_11to30pct Various tL (11-30%) 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B, C, D 38,983 34,660

20 10_S_tL_gt30pct Various tL (>30%) 1, 2, 3 I, II, III B, C, D 101,235

Not Assigned 107,308

Total 1,788,697 1,396,538

Yield group 20 reflects all stands with ≥30% tamarack and are deemed to be non-commercial (excluded from the net landbase). Accordingly, silviculture regimes associated with these stands are not required.

The yield tables include the total merchantable volume per hectare (utilization levels defined in Table 18) by four forest products; (1) Softwood Large Sawlogs (>15 cm small end diameter inside bark; grade 1), Softwood Small Sawlogs, Softwood Pulp and Hardwood Logs. The resulting yield curves can be viewed in Appendix B.

Table 18 Utilization

Species Product

Min. Merch.

Vol (m³/ha)

Fibre Leaves forest

Stump Height (cm)

Minimum Diameter at

Breast Height (cm)

Minimum top

Diameter inside Bark

(cm)

Min. Merch. Height

(m)

log length

(m)

Softwoods (wS, bS, jP, bF)

Large Sawlog 60 Tree length 30 15 10.01 5.35 2.6

Small Sawlog 60 Tree length 30 11.01 10.01 5.35 2.6

Pulp 60 Tree length 30 9.01 8.01 5.35 2.4

Hardwoods (tA, bP, wB)

Hardwood Log 60 Tree length 30 9.01 8.01 5.35 Full tree

4.2 Addressing Blow down from 2010

As mentioned in Section 2.2, blow down areas rated as low or moderately impacted had yields reduced by 50% (medium) or 10% (Low). Polygons (stands) falling within the blow down areas were assigned to modified analysis units that reflected the yield reductions (more detail in Table 23). Harvesting became ineligible where yields were not able to achieve 60m³/ha after the adjustment. Stands that were either previously impacted or heavily impacted were assumed to have undergone a



stand replacing event in 2010 and then experience the regeneration delays shown in Table 19. There is expected to be minor shifts in species composition during regeneration but for the purposes of modeling, all stands were assumed to retain their pre-disturbance development type. Where blowdown stands reach succession ages, they follow the same successional pathways as non blowdown stands (see Table 21).

Table 19 Natural stand regeneration (succession) within Blow Down areas Development

Type Avg

Delay Regen Type

Notes

wSbF 0 Same likely advanced regen bS 5 Same jPbS 10 Same jP 10 Same some will trend heavier to H but small area with shorter regen jPH 10 Same some will trend heavier to H but small area with shorter regen HjP 10 Same some will trend heavier to H but small area with shorter regen HW 5 Same HxS 10 Same xSH 5 Same tL11 5 Same



5 Management Practices

5.1 Silvicultural systems and regeneration assumptions

The only silvicultural system employed in the PA FMA is clearcut with reserves that incorporates stand retention in clumps, single leave trees, and matrix areas. Following harvest, all harvest areas are planted or treated to ensure that the forest is renewed promptly. Hardwood blocks regenerate naturally from the existing root systems (suckering). Areas where understory white spruce trees exist (advanced regeneration) are typically protected to contribute to the next crop. For blocks with a significant softwood component (wS, bS, and jP) it may be necessary to plant seedlings or in the case of jack pine, and sometimes black spruce, to drag scarify the soil surface to spread seed-bearing cones about and facilitate natural regeneration. The silviculture treatment options are presented in Table 20.

Table 20 Silviculture Treatment Options Treatment

Code Logging

Method* Site

Preparation Method

Regeneration Delay

(Years)

Description

LFN CC None 0 Leave for Natural Hardwood regeneration PLANT CC None or

Mechanical 1 Planting (direct or on site prep). Allowance of 2 years

between harvest and planting but then planted with 1 year old seedlings for an effective regeneration delay of 1 year.

SCARIFY CC Scarification 1 Drag scarified to break up cones and prepare soil. *CC, modified clearcut harvest incorporating stand retention in clumps and single leave trees.

5.2 Operability Windows and Transition Rules

The operability window when a stand is eligible for a management action is defined by a minimum and maximum age. The operability windows and transition rules by development type, yield group and Patchworks analysis unit (AU) are shown in Table 21. The minimum age was set based on ensuring a minimum of 60 m³/ha and 95% of culmination MAI. The maximum age was determined by when a yield curve fell to less than 60 m³/ha or 50% of the peak volume (whichever occurred first).

These treatments are designed to regenerate the same stand type present at harvest (i.e. H, HS, SH, S) – see silviculture ground rules for more information. While it is expected that at the block level some shifts in stand type will occur, at the landscape level, the proportion of types is expected to remain relatively consistent. For the purpose of this analysis all current cover types are assumed to remain static throughout the plan horizon (i.e. no cover type transition).

Table 21 Yield Group Assumptions Existing Stands

Treatment

Future Stands

AU Description Yield

Group

Min. Harvest

Age

Max. Harvest

Age

% of Harvested

Area AU

Initial Age

101 1_H_HW_Density_B 1 45 145 CC-LFN 100 101 0

102 1_H_HW_Density_CD 2 50 145 CC-LFN 100 102 0

103 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 3 60 150 CC-LFN 100 103 0

104 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 4 65 150 CC-LFN 100 104 0

105 3_SH_jPH_Density_B 5 60 150 CC-SCARIFY 100 105 -1

106 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD 6 65 150 CC-SCARIFY 100 106 -1

107 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 7 75 160 CC-LFN 100 107 0

108 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 8 80 165 CC-LFN 100 108 0



Existing Stands

Treatment

Future Stands

AU Description Yield

Group

Min. Harvest

Age

Max. Harvest

Age

% of Harvested

Area AU

Initial Age

109 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 9 75 185 CC-LFN 100 109 0

110 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 10 80 190 CC-LFN 100 110 0

111 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor 11 65 200 CC-PLANT 100 111 -1

112 6_S_bS_SiteGood 12 65 200 CC-PLANT 100 112 -1

113 7_S_jP_SitePoor 13 70 120 CC-SCARIFY 100 113 -1

114 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod 14 55 155 CC-SCARIFY 100 114 -1

115 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor 15 80 145 CC-SCARIFY 100 115 -1

116 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod 16 60 180 CC-SCARIFY 100 116 -1

117 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 17 65 190 CC-PLANT 100 117 -1

118 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 18 65 185 CC-PLANT 100 118 -1

119 10_S_tL_11to30pct 19 60 100 CC-PLANT 100 119 -1

5.3 Successional pathways and break-up ages

Successional pathways define the development of a stand following the break-up age. In reality there is no clearly defined breakup age but for purposes of modeling, it will be set to the age where only 25% of the peak volume of the yield curves remains for each yield group (Breakup Age in Table 22). The successional pathways when stands reach break up ages follow a one-to-one relationship but the initial age starts at an advanced age (Post Breakup age).

Table 22 Breakup Age and Natural Succession Rules

AU Description

Pre-Breakup Post Break up

DEV Type PFT Group Breakup

Age AU Initial Age

101 1_H_HW_Density_B HW TAB,AOH 170 101 20

102 1_H_HW_Density_CD HW TAB,AOH 170 102 20

103 2_HS_HjP_Density_B HjP HPM 175 103 50

104 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD HjP HPM 175 104 50

105 3_SH_jPH_Density_B jPH PMW 175 105 30

106 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD jPH PMW 175 106 30

107 4_HS_HxS_Density_B HxS HSM 185 107 30

108 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD HxS HSM 190 108 30

109 5_SH_SxH_Density_B xSH SMW 200 109 40

110 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD xSH SMW 200 110 40

111 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor bS BSL 200 111 40

112 6_S_bS_SiteGood bS BSL 200 112 40

113 7_S_jP_SitePoor jP JPL 180 113 20

114 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod jP JPL 180 114 20

115 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor jPbS BSJ 200 115 30

116 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod jPbS BSJ 200 116 30

117 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 wSbF WSF 200 117 40

118 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 wSbF WSF 200 118 40

119 10_S_tL_11to30pct tl11 TL_mixed 195 119 40



5.4 Modelling Analysis Units

In order to implement reductions to future stands (i.e. future road reductions) and impacts of blowdown assumptions, and conduct various sensitivities around managed stand yield curves, analysis units needed to be replicated several times so that related attributes could be assigned and/or changed. Table 23 provides a list of the various series of analysis units that were used for modeling. There are 19 base yield curves so the last two digits always remained the same.

Table 23 Modelling Analysis Unit Schema

Analysis Unit Series Analysis Unit Series Description

Future Analysis

Unit Comments

100's Existing natural stands 200's

200's Future managed of existing natural 200's Associated yields factored by .9938 to account for future road reductions (see Section 3.4.6)

300's Blowdown - Low severity 200's Associated yield curves reduced by 10% ( factored by 0.9)

400's Blowdown - Moderate severity 200's Associated yield curves reduced by 50%

500's Existing managed stands 600's Defined by having a disturbance history of cutover or silviculture

600's Future managed of existing managed 600's

6 Re-Planning Threshold caused by Natural Disturbance

It is inevitable that natural disturbances will occur within the forests of the PA FMA and the implications of these disturbances on forest age classes and volumes should be recognized in the timber supply analysis process. Natural disturbances are events caused by factors such as wildfire, wind, snow press, insects, disease and other forest health considerations. While endemic events are accounted for in the yield tables, catastrophic events need to be included in a landscape level analysis. For the net landbase, a 10% threshold for re-analysis has been agreed upon by the forest management planning team. Thus, future catastrophic natural disturbance is not modeled here.

7 Non-timber Objectives and Targets

This section of the document describes the range of non-timber management objectives that occur within the PA FMA and how they were addressed in the timber supply model. The most common method of inclusion is through the application of forest cover requirements.

Forest cover requirements can; (1) limit disturbance in an area by limiting the amount of forest that can be younger than a specific age (or shorter than a specific height), and (2) maintain specific stand types on the land base by ensuring that at least a specified amount of forest older than a certain age (or taller than a certain height) is retained at all times;

Forest cover requirements from several different resource objectives can occur in a common area and result in overlapping constraints within the productive area (e.g. visual constraints and old growth retention). Each requirement is evaluated independently to ensure that the harvesting of a specific



stand does not violate any forest cover requirements. The targets for the non-timber management objectives and the modeling approaches for this analysis are summarized in Table 24.

Table 24 Summary of Management Issues and Modeling Approach Resource Issue Modeling Approach

Natural Forest Patterns - Event Sizes

Licensees are striving to create harvest events that approximate historical natural forest patterns – including very large patches with internal structure (mimicking of natural boreal fire patterns). This is not always possible due to management of other values, terrain and/or age class issues. . For example, historical natural events size of 0-100ha consist of 19% of the landbase while the 2010-2019 harvest events size consist of 5% of the landbase. These small patches can be created by small fires, small insect disturbances, and short-term flooding due to beaver activity and third party operators on the FMA. Furthermore, small harvest opening near events (<500m) will be lumped into the larger event sizes. For economic reasons, creation of small disturbed patches going forward is not desirable. For the purpose of modeling, harvest patch areas will be tracked as surrogates of event size (which can’t be modeled directly in Patchworks). Harvest patches are created from all stands <=10 yrs old and any openings within 0m of each other are considered the same patch. For the purpose of modeling, harvest patch areas were tracked as surrogates of event size (which can’t be modeled directly in Patchworks). Harvest openings within 100m of each other are considered the same patch. Harvest patches are allowed to range in size up to 4000 ha, with targets as follows:

Harvest Patch Size Event Size Target Accepted Variation

0-4 ha 0-4 ha 0% 5%

4-60 ha 5-100 ha 10% 5%

61-800 ha 101-1500 ha 50% 10%

801-1800 ha 1501-3500 20% 10%

1801-4000 ha 3501-8000 20% 10%

4000+ ha 8000+ 0 0%

These targets are setup so as not to impact harvest levels. They are only meant to influence the spatial distribution/configuration of harvest on the land base.

Block Level retention (matrix, insular, clump, and leave trees)

An average of 9% of harvest areas (in addition to riparian retention on mapped features) is to be maintained in the form of insular clumps, single trees and islands. It is acceptable to remove half of this retention after 20 years but it is felt that this is unlikely to occur in this FMA (operational, logistical, and other challenges). Thus, the full 9% is being considered an incremental impact (no overlap with other issues except steep slopes and cabin dispositions which are likely trivial overlaps). The retained areas will undergo succession patterns according to its stand type and can contribute towards old and very old seral retention requirements.

Old and Very Old Forest Requirements

A minimum of 15% of the MFLB for each cover species group (Table 25) in each of the 11 management units (aggregated ecodistricts) in the FMA (Figure 6) is to be old or very old forest (Table 26) at all times. A minimum of 5% of the MFLB of the same units is to be very old forest at all times. Where targets are not met initially, harvesting can still occur as long as sufficient area is held to meet the target as soon as possible.

Interior Old / Very Old

In order to maintain large contiguous patches of old and very old forests, patch features defined by old+very old seral ages were created and split into three size ranges; 0-100 ha, 100-500ha, and >500ha using a 0m distance threshold (i.e. polygons meeting the age criteria had to touch each other). Targets were placed on maintaining the percent interior on the land base. This meant that even though the absolute amount old forest declined over time, the proportion of old large patches was maintained as best as possible. Targets changed between scenarios so the final targets chosen are displayed in the analysis document in the scenario description section.



Resource Issue Modeling Approach

Woodland Caribou - General

No direct guidance on modeling/managing caribou has been provided by the Forest Service so the following general guidelines were implemented in the model to increase the likelihood that the model’s first 20 years of harvest are considering caribou habitat issues. - Define caribou habitat as the area of BSL/BSJ/JLP that is within 1km of water / wetland / muskeg and inside the potential Caribou habitat range (from the Forest Service). Any of this habitat area with stands >=50 years is tracked in the following patch size classes; (1) 0-100 ha, (2) 101-1,000 ha, and (3) >1,000 ha. Stands >=50 yrs old and <100m apart are considered part of the same patch. Without impacting the sustainable harvest volume, the model will attempt to maintain the existing amount of large patches. - Focus harvesting within disturbed areas in the first 20 years. The model tracks the areas within 500m of any area currently less than 40 years of age or adjacent to linear features (roads, trails, transmission lines, etc.). For the first 20 years, logging was minimized outside of these ‘disturbed’ areas and prioritized into the disturbed areas using soft penalties in the model.

Woodland Caribou – Specific

Sakaw shareholders collectively agreed to avoid harvesting within caribou habitat maintenance zones (8 zones based on draft maps of high caribou suitability) for the next 50 years. These areas were identified in the model and had a target of 0 ha of harvesting placed on them for the first 50 years of the200 year planning horizon. This area covers approximately 8% of the net area overall. Existing AOP blocks within these areas were allowed to be harvested.

Fisher Habitat The stands 50-120 years belonging to the WSF/BSL/BSJ/SMW/HSM types were tracked in the following patch size classes; (1) 0-5,000 ha, (2) 5,001-10,000 ha, and (3) >10,000 ha. Patches <500m apart were considered as part of the same patch.

Moose Habitat

The Moose “cover” area defined by the stands >= 50 years belonging to the WSF/BSL/BSJ/JLP/PMW/SMW/HSM/HPM types were tracked throughout the planning horizon. The Moose “browse” area defined by the stands <= 20 years was also tracked throughout the planning horizon.

Lakeshore and Montreal River Visual Management

Lakes of concern (Lake at 13U 308476 5996240, Lake at 13U 345102 5966294, Big_Sandy, Chitek , Clam, Cowan, Deer Lake, Delaronde, Dore, East_Trout, Green, Helene, Heritage, Hookers, Jet, Lac_la_Plonge, Lac_la_Ronge, Little_Bear, Lowther, Mahigan, Montreal, Morin, Nesslin, Pear Lake, Piprell, Poplar Ridge, Sled, Smoothstone, Wpawekka, Weyakwin, Whiteswan, Sanderson, Triveet, Hackett, Montreal, Bittern) and the Montreal river were identified and buffered by 300 m and disturbance limits were placed for each lake/river as follows: Max. 33% of the MFLB can be <30 years at any time. A Min of 20% of the MFLB must be >70/80 years (HWD/ SWD).

Hillside Visual Management Hillside areas were identified and mapped and had the following disturbance limits applied: Maximum of 20% of MFLB can be <20 years.

Table 25 Group species considered for seral stage requirements Group Species Label Description PFTs included

H Hardwood stands AOH, TAB HS-SH Mixedwood stands HPM, HSM, SMW, PMW S(JLP) Jack Pine leading softwood stands JLP S(BSJ-BSL) Black Spruce leading softwood stands BSJ, BSL S(WSF) White Spruce/Balsam Fir leading softwood stands WSF

Table 26 Seral Stage Definitions by Cover Species Group Cover Species Group Young Immature Mature Old Very Old

H and HS (Hardwoods) 0 – 20 21 – 70 71 – 90 91 – 110 > 110 jP leading stands 0 – 20 21 – 70 71 – 90 91 – 110 > 110 S and SH (Softwoods not jP) 0 – 20 21 – 80 81 – 100 101 – 120 > 120



7.1.1 Management Units

Ecodistricts in the Prince Albert FMA were grouped into ecosystem management units to form management units of appropriate size for establishing landscape level event size, old forest retention, and interior forest targets. Figure 6 shows the management units while Table 27 provides an area summary by contributing classification.

Figure 6 Ecological management units and base ecodistricts

Table 27 Ecological management unit areas by contributing classification

Management Unit Total Area

Total Productive Forest- PFLB (Ha)

Total Managed Forest -MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

CLP_WU 384,862 216,409 215,363 173,213

LH_SCP_TU_SR 270,921 205,651 205,033 173,441

LRL_North 343,334 143,496 142,484 113,812

LRL_South 270,009 129,509 129,037 107,134

MLP_ELU 293,608 134,369 129,321 105,471

MLP_SP_LPP_DLL 431,466 186,259 170,073 142,187

SP 107,846 55,236 55,236 45,557

WAPA_U 277,715 175,993 164,056 140,975

WASK_U 223,237 144,573 144,057 119,186

WGP_MRP 308,317 152,549 126,986 93,449



Management Unit Total Area

Total Productive Forest- PFLB (Ha)

Total Managed Forest -MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

WP 438,217 244,653 222,261 182,113

Total 3,349,533 1,788,697 1,703,907 1,396,538

8 Model Formulation

8.1 The Forest Estate Model

For forecasting and analysis, the PATCHWORKSTM modeling software was used. This suite of tools is sold / maintained by Spatial Planning Systems Inc. of Deep River, Ontario (www.spatial.ca).

Patchworks is a fully spatial forest estate model that can incorporate real world operational considerations into a strategic planning framework. It is unique in its ability to dynamically assess spatial relationships during modeling and adapt solutions to achieve spatial objectives. It utilizes a goal seeking approach and an optimization heuristic to schedule activities across time and space in order to find a solution that best balances the targets/goals defined by the user. Targets can be applied to any aspect of the problem formulation. For example, the solution can be influenced by issues such as mature/old forest retention levels, young seral disturbance levels, patch size distributions, conifer harvest volume, growing stock levels, snag densities, CWD levels, ECA’s, specific mill volumes by species, road building/hauling costs, delivered wood costs, net present values, etc. Patchworks continually generates alternative solutions until the user decides a stable solution has been found. Solutions with attributes that fall outside of specified ranges (targets) are penalized and the goal seeking algorithm works to minimize these penalties – resulting in a solution that reflects the user’s objectives and priorities.

Patchworks’ flexible interactive approach is unique in several respects:

• Patchworks’ interface allows for highly interactive analysis of trade-offs between competing sustainability goals.

• Patchworks integrates operational-scale decision-making within a strategic-analysis environment: realistic spatial harvest allocations can be optimized over long-term planning horizons. Patchworks can simultaneously evaluate forest operations and log transportation problems using a multiple-product to multiple-destination formulation. The model can identify in precise detail how wood will flow to mills over a complex set of road construction and transportation alternatives.

• Allocation decisions can be made considering one or many objectives simultaneously and objectives can be weighted for importance relative to each other. (softer vs. harder constraints)

• Allocation decisions can include choices between stand treatment types (Clearcut vs. partial cut, fertilization, rehabilitation, etc.).

• Unlimited capacity to represent a problem – only solution times limit model size. • Fully customizable reporting on economic, social, and environmental conditions over time.

Reports are built web-ready for easy sharing of analysis results – even comparisons of multiple indicators across multiple scenarios.

8.2 Harvest Priorities and Target Weightings

The concept of harvest priorities (e.g. oldest first) is not relevant in an optimization/heuristic model. However, within Patchworks, it is necessary to weight various targets or objectives relative to each other

http://www.spatial.ca/



so that solutions reflect the desired outcome. In this analysis, the harvest volume target was weighted substantially lower than all other targets so that non timber objectives were not sacrificed to deliver volume. The objective is for harvest volume only to be attractive to the model when all other issues have been addressed (e.g. old seral objectives). Weighting take into account the scale of different units associated with targets (ha vs m3 vs %’s) when setting weightings.

Patchworks generates millions of alternative solutions and ranks them depending on how well they achieve the user’s objectives. Because it is up the user to decide when Patchworks should stop searching for a better solution, a specific defined criterion for a ‘stable’ solution is desirable. This helps ensure that differences between scenario results occur because of model input differences and not from extra effort spent finding a better solution. For the purpose of this project, Patchwork results were accepted once the objective function improved by less than 0.0001% in 250,000 iterations.

8.3 Modelling Assumptions

General assumptions were incorporated into the model to improve its efficiency or to produce results that are spatially more realistic. Table 28 summarizes the modeling assumptions employed in this analysis.

Table 28 Model specific assumptions Criteria Factor Applied

Future Roads Reductions Yields of future stands factored by .9938 (200’s series). See section 3.4.6 on page 17 for further details.

Riparian Areas Reductions

Riparian area reduction factors were derived for each resultant polygon that intersected a riparian buffer so individual polygons had unique reduction factors assigned to them. However, this averaged 0.4% of the net land base (as shown in Table 2 on Page 8).

In-Block Retention A reserve factor of 9% was applied aspatially to each block. See Table 24 for further details.

Blocking Polygons were grouped into blocks using the buiit-in patchworks blocking tool. Multi-part blocks were created with a target block size of 25 ha. A 20 m distance threshold was used meaning that polygons up to 20 m apart could be considered part of the same block. Blocks were stratified on the following fields: Analysis Unit (AU), Seral Stage Group (SERAL_STAGE), Group Species (GROUP_SPECIES), Operational Planned Year (OPPLANYEAR), and Contributing Classification (contclass) and were not allowed to contain polygons with more than a 10 year age gap.

Minimum Block Size Efforts were made to minimize the incidence of very small blocks (Blocks > 0.1 ha). However, there were 3 blocks less than 0.1 ha.

Maximum Block Size

Prior to blocking, the planning inventory file had large polygons (>50 ha) split using a 50 ha grid. The target block size was 25 ha. It is important to note that although the largest block size was 54 ha, Patch controls implemented during modeling means that two adjacent blocks could be harvested in the same decade creating larger openings.

Planning Horizon A 200 year planning horizon was used. Modeling was conducted in 5 year periods (40) to represent the 200 year horizon from 2015 to 2215.

Planned Harvest Planned harvest blocks incorporated into the planning inventory were prioritized for harvest for the first planning periods (2015-2019).



8.4 Harvest Flow Objectives

The harvest flow objectives are based on section 3.5.8 of the FMPD. Ideally, the flows met the following constraints:

Achieve a short term (20-year) flow with the annual allocation for Sakâw member companies. Sensitivity analyses to determine the impacts of a higher volume harvested in the short term, on mid and long term harvest flow and growing stock were conducted;

Fluctuation in the flow of timber must not exceed 10% per decade;

A specific ending inventory constraint was not used in favour of find a stable growing stock in the long term.

Achieve all non-timber targets above;

Achieve a maximum long term stable harvest over a 200-year planning horizon reflecting the productive capacity of the PA FMA. One good indicator of a stable long-term harvest level is a constant long term total inventory (i.e. the growing stock on the Net Area).Harvest volumes are tracked for both softwood and hardwood species independently as either incidental or primary stand volumes. Current annual harvest allocations for the FMA are shown below in Table 29.

Table 29 Current volume allocations in the PA FMA area

Allocation Holder

Softwood Allocation

(m³/yr)

Hardwood Allocation

(m³/yr)

Pulp Allocation

(m³/yr) Total

Allocation

A.C Forestry 200,000 200,000

400,000

Carrier Forest Products 375,000

375,000

Edgewood Forest Products 75,000

75,000

L&M Forest Products 75,000

75,000

Meadow Lake Mechanical Pulp

95,000

95,000

Meadow Lake OSB (Tolko)

600,000

600,000

Montreal Lake Business Ventures 200,000 40,000

240,000

NorSask Forest Products 175,000 175,000

Sakâw Totals 1,100,000 935,000 2,035,000

Third Party Operators 150,000 12,000

162,000

Northern Village of Green Lake 15,000

15,000

Paper Excellence 661,000 661,000

PA FMA Totals 1,265,000 947,000 661,000 2,873,000

The timber supply model ensured sustainable harvest level of total Hardwood, softwood sawlogs, and pulp volumes.

8.5 Long Run Sustainable Yield LRSY Calculation

The LRSY was calculated by determining the maximum Mean Annual Increment of each yield group and multiplying by the THLB area within each Yield Group (Table 30). For hardwood stands (yield group 1&2), the reference year was based on maximum hardwood CMAI, for mixed-wood stands, the reference year was based on the total Increment (Yield curves 3-10), and softwood stands used the softwood culmination for the reference year (Yield curves 11-19).



Table 30 LRSY Calculated with PA FMA Yield Curves and Utilization Standards

Yield Group

Description CMAI AGE

HWD MAI

SWD MAI

Area (ha) Hwd VOL

(m³/yr)

Swd Pulp Vol

(m³/yr)

Swd Sawlog

vol (m³/yr)

Total VOL (m³/yr)

1 1_H_HW_Density_B 50 1.373 0.358 84,293 115,702 10,328 19,861 145,891

2 1_H_HW_Density_CD 55 2.115 0.368 266,578 563,938 15,938 82,196 662,072

3 2_HS_HjP_Density_B 80 0.685 0.678 24,466 16,761 2,098 14,481 33,340

4 2_HS_HjP_Density_CD 85 1.120 1.242 24,122 27,014 7,562 22,392 56,968

5 3_SH_jPH_Density_B 80 0.477 0.886 20,475 9,770 3,805 14,326 27,902

6 3_SH_jPH_Density_CD 85 0.750 1.612 16,430 12,314 7,448 19,039 38,801

7 4_HS_HxS_Density_B 95 0.482 1.073 23,475 11,318 3,494 21,694 36,507

8 4_HS_HxS_Density_CD 100 1.300 0.976 66,960 87,066 7,965 57,420 152,451

9 5_SH_SxH_Density_B 95 0.553 1.003 12,829 7,088 1,680 11,183 19,951

10 5_SH_SxH_Density_CD 100 0.859 1.418 33,533 28,793 6,110 41,442 76,346

11 6_S_bS_SiteModPoor 85 0.081 0.938 153,132 12,427 36,561 107,072 156,060

12 6_S_bS_SiteGood 90 0.093 1.324 76,719 7,162 21,207 80,351 108,719

13 7_S_jP_SitePoor 55 0.053 0.869 79,374 4,229 23,520 45,300 73,050

14 7_S_jP_SiteGoodMod 65 0.114 1.915 190,174 21,602 111,142 253,126 385,871

15 8_S_jPbS_SitePoor 70 0.005 0.766 26,125 138 4,562 15,381 20,080

16 8_S_jPbS_SiteGoodMod 80 0.126 1.398 144,110 18,184 52,602 148,644 219,430

17 9_S_wSbF_FMZ1 70 0.279 1.907 17,076 4,767 6,777 24,802 36,347

18 9_S_wSbF_FMZ23 70 0.244 1.959 30,433 7,436 6,926 50,980 65,342

19 10_S_tL_11to30pct 50 0.325 0.937 32,838 10,677 5,593 24,898 41,167

Total 1,323,142 966,388 335,318 1,054,588 2,356,295



9 References

Andison, D., 2005. Determining Island Remnants and Meso-scale Fire Patterns in Saskatchewan. Part 1: Disturbance Event Patterns. Bandaloop Landscape-Ecosystem Services.

Cieszewski, C.J., Bella, I.E., and Yeung, D.P., 1993. Preliminary site index height growth curves for eleven timber species in Saskatchewan. Draft unpublished report. Canada-Saskatchewan Partnership Agreement in Forestry, Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service.

Gelhorn, L. [Timberline Forest Inventory Consultants Ltd.]. 2006. New taper equation calibration for Saskatchewan. Weyerhaeuser Saskatchewan / Saskatchewan Forest Centre.

Gelhorn, L. [Timberline Natural Resource Group Ltd.]. 2008. Yield Curve Development for the Prince Albert Timber Supply Area – Natural Stand Yield Curves. 78p.

M. C. Hansen, P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, , & J. R. G. Townshend 2013 High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change Science 15 November 2013: 342 (6160), 850-853. [DOI:10.1126/science.1244693]

Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment and Resource Management. 1985. Timber Supply Analysis in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment. 2007. Forest Management Planning Document.



Appendix A – Ecological management unit areas by species and seral stage (initial condition)

Management Unit

Species Group

MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

Young Immature Mature Old Very Old

MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

% of Total MFLB

MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

% of Total MFLB

MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

% of Total MFLB

MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

% of Total MFLB

MFLB (Ha)

Net Area (Ha)

% of Total MFLB

CLP_WU H 80,939 75,070 17,508 15,706 22% 26,769 23,649 33% 22,610 20,222 28% 5,845 5,101 7% 8,206 7,389 10%

HS-SH 42,639 38,276 11,647 10,409 27% 10,278 8,452 24% 5,926 4,822 14% 3,300 2,767 8% 11,488 10,295 27%

S(JLP) 14,156 13,060 961 861 7% 2,759 2,419 19% 8,020 7,116 57% 1,273 1,120 9% 1,143 1,021 8%

S(BSJ+BSL) 64,617 34,928 6,269 3,692 10% 17,855 9,816 28% 15,960 9,173 25% 10,348 4,302 16% 14,186 6,547 22%

S(WSF) 13,012 11,879 4,528 4,066 35% 1,117 910 9% 738 612 6% 1,561 1,379 12% 5,067 4,438 39%

Total 215,363 173,213 40,913 34,734 19% 58,778 45,246 27% 53,254 41,946 25% 22,328 14,669 10% 40,090 29,690 19%

LH_SCP_TU_SR H 122,131 112,605 26,179 23,429 21% 17,007 14,958 14% 51,493 45,418 42% 19,978 17,645 16% 7,475 6,652 6%

HS-SH 26,207 22,510 5,799 4,735 22% 3,951 3,012 15% 8,275 6,850 32% 4,116 3,508 16% 4,067 3,505 16%

S(JLP) 18,084 16,159 3,653 2,952 20% 2,131 1,776 12% 6,847 5,974 38% 4,249 3,751 23% 1,203 1,060 7%

S(BSJ+BSL) 28,375 13,326 4,660 2,286 16% 3,723 1,809 13% 8,225 4,720 29% 6,939 2,503 24% 4,828 1,476 17%

S(WSF) 10,236 8,840 2,384 1,942 23% 1,395 1,039 14% 2,202 1,897 22% 1,590 1,331 16% 2,664 2,279 26%

Total 205,033 173,441 42,675 35,343 21% 28,207 22,593 14% 77,042 64,857 38% 36,871 28,738 18% 20,238 14,972 10%

LRL_North H 17,662 16,613 5,626 5,123 32% 2,875 2,610 16% 2,558 2,293 14% 1,395 1,211 8% 5,207 4,710 29%

HS-SH 20,533 18,630 5,360 4,861 26% 7,144 6,107 35% 1,513 1,263 7% 1,076 865 5% 5,439 4,789 26%

S(JLP) 39,808 35,549 11,501 10,261 29% 9,020 7,563 23% 7,763 6,475 20% 3,144 2,707 8% 8,379 7,120 21%

S(BSJ+BSL) 61,916 40,748 6,236 5,135 10% 9,359 4,778 15% 8,140 5,500 13% 11,352 6,939 18% 26,828 16,767 43%

S(WSF) 2,566 2,272 598 545 23% 36 32 1% 73 63 3% 361 319 14% 1,498 1,222 58%

Total 142,484 113,812 29,321 25,925 21% 28,435 21,091 20% 20,047 15,594 14% 17,329 12,041 12% 47,351 34,608 33%

LRL_South H 17,702 16,599 1,382 1,255 8% 5,411 4,896 31% 4,993 4,421 28% 2,383 2,168 13% 3,532 3,195 20%

HS-SH 16,844 15,120 2,015 1,777 12% 5,779 4,955 34% 4,098 3,538 24% 1,480 1,262 9% 3,471 2,983 21%

S(JLP) 47,672 42,071 5,343 4,853 11% 11,690 9,008 25% 19,383 16,784 41% 6,871 5,985 14% 4,385 3,758 9%

S(BSJ+BSL) 43,305 30,778 1,540 1,207 4% 11,438 8,362 26% 11,631 9,102 27% 5,824 3,738 13% 12,871 7,138 30%

S(WSF) 3,514 2,565 1,171 594 33% 47 39 1% 53 38 2% 207 167 6% 2,036 1,623 58%

Total 129,037 107,134 11,452 9,687 9% 34,366 27,260 27% 40,159 33,883 31% 16,765 13,322 13% 26,296 18,697 20%

MLP_ELU H 31,716 29,896 4,473 4,060 14% 10,820 9,783 34% 10,035 9,074 32% 4,934 4,478 16% 1,454 1,304 5%

HS-SH 21,625 19,797 4,182 3,801 19% 7,493 6,504 35% 4,530 3,976 21% 3,052 2,670 14% 2,368 2,053 11%

S(JLP) 25,102 23,068 5,773 4,985 23% 5,315 4,709 21% 8,198 7,266 33% 3,840 3,422 15% 1,975 1,763 8%

S(BSJ+BSL) 47,016 29,165 4,805 2,954 10% 9,978 6,913 21% 11,596 8,293 25% 10,199 5,752 22% 10,438 4,087 22%



S(WSF) 3,861 3,546 592 532 15% 313 268 8% 546 478 14% 901 805 23% 1,510 1,320 39%

Total 129,321 105,471 19,825 16,332 15% 33,919 28,178 26% 34,905 29,087 27% 22,926 17,127 18% 17,746 10,527 14%

MLP_SP_LPP_DLL H 39,032 36,533 10,110 9,184 26% 13,103 11,843 34% 2,344 2,092 6% 2,286 2,042 6% 11,189 9,911 29%

HS-SH 35,974 32,742 7,048 6,374 20% 5,393 4,674 15% 2,465 2,102 7% 3,341 2,879 9% 17,726 15,403 49%

S(JLP) 20,665 18,049 6,360 4,973 31% 4,514 3,822 22% 5,478 4,782 27% 1,825 1,623 9% 2,487 2,128 12%

S(BSJ+BSL) 64,122 45,330 14,880 11,791 23% 7,400 5,179 12% 5,437 3,741 8% 12,449 8,130 19% 23,955 14,675 37%

S(WSF) 10,280 9,533 2,300 2,088 22% 997 895 10% 1,158 1,054 11% 1,094 964 11% 4,730 4,151 46%

Total 170,073 142,187 40,700 34,409 24% 31,407 26,413 18% 16,883 13,772 10% 20,995 15,638 12% 60,088 46,267 35%

SP H 3,310 3,101 347 317 10% 161 121 5% 1,342 1,221 41% 264 231 8% 1,195 1,087 36%

HS-SH 4,248 3,793 195 178 5% 394 279 9% 772 617 18% 513 440 12% 2,374 2,128 56%

S(JLP) 17,886 13,536 3,104 2,731 17% 4,088 2,146 23% 6,414 4,718 36% 203 149 1% 4,076 3,252 23%

S(BSJ+BSL) 29,003 24,393 2,805 2,434 10% 2,683 2,004 9% 5,277 3,540 18% 2,961 2,454 10% 15,277 12,986 53%

S(WSF) 789 734 68 62 9% 19 11 2% 3 3 0% 87 80 11% 611 548 77%

Total 55,236 45,557 6,519 5,721 12% 7,346 4,560 13% 13,809 10,099 25% 4,029 3,353 7% 23,534 20,001 43%

WAPA_U H 27,045 25,240 6,499 5,886 24% 17,513 15,694 65% 779 687 3% 390 346 1% 1,865 1,619 7%

HS-SH 26,829 24,333 8,804 8,016 33% 14,423 12,406 54% 778 650 3% 599 448 2% 2,226 1,841 8%

S(JLP) 44,223 39,496 12,829 11,677 29% 26,631 22,232 60% 2,500 2,181 6% 568 436 1% 1,695 1,390 4%

S(BSJ+BSL) 63,783 50,202 10,773 9,633 17% 24,965 19,779 39% 3,864 2,776 6% 7,964 5,730 12% 16,217 10,276 25%

S(WSF) 2,176 1,703 125 108 6% 434 372 20% 46 36 2% 261 179 12% 1,310 940 60%

Total 164,056 140,975 39,029 35,320 24% 83,966 70,483 51% 7,966 6,330 5% 9,782 7,139 6% 23,313 16,065 14%

WASK_U H 17,578 16,446 4,067 3,690 23% 8,651 7,870 49% 1,927 1,720 11% 454 404 3% 2,478 2,105 14%

HS-SH 19,210 17,614 7,114 6,454 37% 6,803 5,864 35% 1,314 1,137 7% 875 745 5% 3,104 2,709 16%

S(JLP) 35,931 29,037 10,768 8,987 30% 12,174 7,597 34% 8,292 7,378 23% 1,232 956 3% 3,465 2,958 10%

S(BSJ+BSL) 68,006 53,076 8,675 7,473 13% 16,120 8,914 24% 13,719 11,619 20% 13,172 10,605 19% 16,319 12,342 24%

S(WSF) 3,332 3,012 703 638 21% 140 111 4% 369 331 11% 427 372 13% 1,692 1,440 51%

Total 144,057 119,186 31,328 27,242 22% 43,889 30,356 30% 25,622 22,185 18% 16,159 13,082 11% 27,060 21,554 19%

WGP_MRP H 24,214 22,743 977 892 4% 14,563 13,124 60% 5,602 5,042 23% 1,739 1,570 7% 1,334 1,205 6%

HS-SH 11,543 10,157 751 686 7% 5,712 4,702 49% 2,007 1,703 17% 1,185 1,009 10% 1,888 1,649 16%

S(JLP) 42,467 33,586 7,114 6,455 17% 19,189 12,095 45% 10,464 8,925 25% 3,700 3,211 9% 1,999 1,557 5%

S(BSJ+BSL) 45,564 24,368 515 441 1% 15,302 7,792 34% 7,915 5,550 17% 9,789 5,163 21% 12,043 4,447 26%

S(WSF) 3,198 2,595 122 112 4% 731 623 23% 374 316 12% 516 416 16% 1,454 1,024 45%

Total 126,986 93,449 9,479 8,586 7% 55,496 38,337 44% 26,364 21,536 21% 16,931 11,369 13% 18,717 9,882 15%

WP H 25,287 23,893 2,962 2,704 12% 7,369 6,678 29% 9,506 8,614 38% 3,146 2,852 12% 2,304 2,090 9%



HS-SH 29,879 27,564 5,582 5,088 19% 9,624 8,536 32% 7,296 6,358 24% 2,860 2,496 10% 4,517 3,983 15%

S(JLP) 62,328 57,571 7,545 6,831 12% 12,984 11,182 21% 30,471 27,297 49% 7,186 6,288 12% 4,141 3,669 7%

S(BSJ+BSL) 100,306 68,982 5,601 4,814 6% 20,879 14,773 21% 31,631 23,410 32% 19,674 11,192 20% 22,520 12,033 22%

S(WSF) 4,461 4,103 656 599 15% 353 309 8% 697 607 16% 1,129 986 25% 1,627 1,438 36%

Total 222,261 182,113 22,346 20,036 10% 51,209 41,479 23% 79,602 66,287 36% 33,995 23,814 15% 35,109 23,213 16%

Grand Total 1,703,907 1,396,537 293,586 253,335 17% 457,017 355,997 27% 395,653 325,574 23% 218,111 160,293 13% 339,541 245,477 20%



Appendix B – Yield Group Volumes by Product and Species Yield Grp

Forest Products Components Species Components

1

2

3

4

5



Yield Grp


6

7

8

9

10



Yield Grp


11

12

13

14

15



Yield Grp


16

17

18

19

20



Appendix C – Planning Inventory Field Descriptions

Field Description

OBJECTID OBJECTID

Shape Shape field

CORE FMA Core

SW_OP_ZONE Softwood Operating Zone

LicenseeHWD Licensee

HW_OP_ZONE Hardwood Operating Zone

EXCL_NO Exclusion number

EXCL_TYPE Exclusion Type

EXCL_NAME Exclusion Name

EXCL_KEY Exclusion Key field

DIS_ROLLUP Dispositions

SUBJECTIVE_NAME Subjective Leave Name

SUBJECTIVE Subjective Leave Flag

TLE Treaty Land Entitlement Flag

forcov_KEY Input Consolidated Forest Cover key link field

POLY_ID SFVI_FIELD

MAPSHEET_NUM SFVI_FIELD

POLY_NUM SFVI_FIELD

ECOSITE SFVI_FIELD

TYPE SFVI_FIELD

NVSL SFVI_FIELD

NVSL_COVER SFVI_FIELD

TOPO_CLASS SFVI_FIELD

SMR SFVI_FIELD

AQUATIC_CLASS SFVI_FIELD

LUC SFVI_FIELD

TRANSP_CLASS SFVI_FIELD

FCT_CODE SFVI_FIELD

CROWN_CL SFVI_FIELD

HEIGHT SFVI_FIELD

YOO SFVI_FIELD

AGE SFVI_FIELD

WS SFVI_FIELD

BS SFVI_FIELD

JP SFVI_FIELD

BF SFVI_FIELD

TL SFVI_FIELD

LP SFVI_FIELD

TA SFVI_FIELD

BP SFVI_FIELD

WB SFVI_FIELD



Field Description

MM SFVI_FIELD

GA SFVI_FIELD

BO SFVI_FIELD

RP SFVI_FIELD

SP SFVI_FIELD

SL SFVI_FIELD

WE SFVI_FIELD

PC SFVI_FIELD

CSG SFVI_FIELD

PFT SFVI_FIELD

mcode SFVI_FIELD

FCT_PLAN_2015 Forsite_Adjusted FCT

CSG_PLAN_2015 Forsite_Adjusted FCT

PFT_PLAN_2015 Forsite_Adjusted FCT

ADJUST Forsite_Adjusted flag 0=SFVI, 1=UTM, 2=Regeneration Data, 3=remaining open productive assigned to generic Aspen Stand, 4=Update age for large fire in 1995 not captured by UTM data.

ENVIR_CODE Blowdown Depletion

FIRE_YR Fire Depletions

FIRE_NO Fire Depletions

FIRE_NAME Fire Depletions

Surv Fire Depletions

FIRE_KEY Fire Depletions

Fire_Priority Fire Depletions

FIREKILL Fire Depletions

DISTURBANCE Most Recent Depletions from either SFVI Depletions or from recent Depletions

YOO_2015 Forsite calculated Year of Origin

AGE_2015 Forsite calculated Age @ 2015

Calc_SI Forsite calculated based on Cieszewski equation

SI_adjust flag for adjusted Site index

LEAD_SPECIES Forsite derived from multilayer species

FMZ_ID FMZ flag

FMZ_NME FMZ

FMU FMU

Yield_Group Yield Group Number

CC_CLASS Crown Closure Class

CC_Adjust_flag Crown Closure Class adjustment flag

TYPE_2015 Consolidated TYPE Classification

SERAL_STAGE Seral Stage assignment

SITE_CLASS Site Productivity class

SI_LG Site Index from Lane Gelhorn Dataset

SI_Combine Merge of SI_LG & Calc_SI fields (used for SITE_CLASS and ultimately yield group assignment)

FID_SLOPE Used to flag steep slopes



Field Description

contclass Contributing Classifcation (C=THLB, N=Non-Contributing Forest, X=Non-Forest/Non-Crown)

netdown Netdown reason (Specific)

THLB_Area Shape Area calculated for THLB polygons and adjusted down by aspatial riparian (Rip_pct)

rollup Netdown reason (general)

RSI_STOCKING Wieghted Average stocking % from RSI survey information

LinearType Linear features type for linear features not already reflected in inventory

LinearBuffer buffer width for linear features

isolated isolated stand flag (<4 ha and >75 m away from other THLB.)

NFP_NUM Natural Forest Pattern Management unit #

NFP_NAME Natural Forest Pattern Management unit Name (Aggregated Ecodistricts)

RGEUNIT Woodland Caribou Range Unit flag

OPPLANYEAR Operational harvest plan year (to be used to set priority for 2014 Harvest in Model as well as first 5 year period)

Location Visual Location Name

VSA_TYPE Visual Type

VSA Visual Flag

Rip_pct Riparian Buffer calculated as a percent of polygon area

RES_KEY Link field (copy of FID_resultant) used to link to internal forsite resultant table

Shape_Length Perimeter in m

Shape_Area Area in m³

FEATUREID Link field (copy of Objectid)

MAPSHEETNUM populated MAPSHEET_NUM

HECTARES Shape_Area/10000

AGE_CLASS Age_2015 grouped into age classes

DEVTYPE Development type (used as a classifier for yield groups_

SGR Silviculture ground rule reference

PRODUCTIVITY populated with SITE_CLASS

ELIGIBILITY Based on rollup field

EXCLUSION Permanent, Partial, Net Area

ECOREGION Not Used

ECODISTRICT Not Used

VISUALVALUE Copy of VSA_TYPE (redundant)

ACCESS Not used

HARV_YEAR Numeric Harvest Year (99-2013)



ELIGIBILITY

Binary Code rollup

1000000000000 001_Non_FMA

0100000000000 002_Dispositions

0010000000000 003_TLE

0001000000000 004_Non_Forest

0000100000000 005_Linear_Features

0000010000000 006_Reserves

0000001000000 007_Subjective_Leave

0000000100000 008_Steep_Slope

0000000010000 009_Non_Commercial_1_A_Density

0000000001000 009_Non_Commercial_2

0000000000100 009_Non_Commercial_3_Larchy

0000000000010 009_Non_Commercial_4_Low_Site

0000000000001 010_Isolated Stands

0000000000000 THLB

Prince Albert FMA - Sakaw · 4/28/2015 · Vegetation Inventory (SFVI) format and has been updated...

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