Alberta Considering Sale of Commercial Timber Permits in Local Forest Units

The Alberta provincial government has asked interested companies to submit proposals to harvest timber within two Forest Management Units (FMUs) — one of which encompasses most of the Barrhead and Westlock Counites — over a five-year period.

The Alberta Agriculture, Forestry, and Rural Economic Development released the original Request for Proposal (RFP) in early December. The closing date for proposals to be submitted to the province is January 31, 2022.

According to that RFP, the province is considering the sale of a commercial timber permit that would allow the successful bidder to harvest up to 500 hectares of public land or no more than 100,000 cubic meters of timber per “timber year,” whichever is reached first. (A timber year, incidentally, runs from May 1 to April 30.)

The timber would be harvested from FMU WO1 and WO2, which encompasses Mayerthorpe, Barrhead, Onoway, Spruce Grove, and Stony Plain.

The entire timber permit area is approximately 110,000 hectares in size, although only 2,500 hectares would be harvested as per the RFP. The exact locations where harvesting would take place are undetermined.

The RFP, which also outlines the requirements that applicants must meet, states that the sale of this commercial timber permit is in line with the Forest Jobs Action Plan, which is aimed at supporting “a sustainable, long-term supply of forest jobs and fiber access for Alberta’s forest industry.”