Northern Exposure

1. Northern Exposure BCTS and Vanderhoof District Collaboration on FFT Implementation

2. Backgrounder • Conifex has held the Recipient Agreement for the Vanderhoof and Ft. St. James Districts since 2007 • Last spring, Conifex gave notice that they now had too much of their own work to do, and were relinquishing the Agreement • At that point, Ljiljana and Susan visited both districts to scope out the interest of districts to take over all or part of the FFT program.

3. Both Districts (DJA and DVA) expressed interest in getting involved in the program, but the two districts went in different directions with regard to how the program would be implemented, because the focus of the program is different in each district. • Vanderhoof District had two significant forest fires in 2010: the Grier Fire in June, and the Binta in August, for a total of about 25,000 ha lost.

4. District staff realized that, given the current staffing, it would be difficult to roll out the entire program, particularly since planting was due to increase by 350% in 2013. • In particular, this would mean planning and prescriptions for 1.5 MM seedlings during 2012 season (Conifex had identified homes for the other 1.5 MM)

5. BCTS spent several weeks evaluating their options and submitted a proposal to carry out portions of the FFT program • There is a currently a Memorandum of Understanding in the form of a Service Agreement in place, dated April 12, 2011, between BCTS and the Forest Practices and Investment Branch that provides guidance on the implementation of BCTS delivering the FFT program. Contact Kelly for a copy.

6. 2012/13 Program • Spring plant: 866,800 seedlings • Access: $76,600 • Overview Planning: $16,534 • Stocking/FG surveys: 2500 ha • Prescriptions/planning: 4473 ha • Site Prep: 0 • Stand Maintenance: 0 • Total Current Reforestation dollars : $886,850 • Total Timber Supply Mitigation: $0

7. Division of Labour • Went through the planned budget line by line and allocated activities to the organization that will complement current activities • For 2012, District staff will implement the stocking survey program • BCTS will implement the planting, prescriptions, and access management

8. Future plans: District will implement Brushing and Site Prep, but site prep may be revisited in the future • Each organization will accrue the 10% overhead fee for the activity that they are implementing

9. BCTS Advantages • Assist BCTS with economies of scale • 2 MM seedling contract is optimum for pricing and staff efficiencies for BCTS blocks. • Will be able to combine FFT blocks with TS blocks to achieve at least 2 contracts of this size in the future, and expect to lower FFT cost/tree by $0.05

10. More work for staff as sales volumes shift out of district • Maintain staffing at close to current levels • Greater variety of planting experiences for staff and crews (ex underplants, etc) • Building skills for prescription writing, ROI calculations, etc. • More staff engagement on broader stewardship issues • Demonstrates to government that internal agencies are capable of delivering low-cost, on-time products

11. New training opportunities for BCTS staff (TIPSY, ROI’s, RESULTS to deal with government obligations, etc) • Commitment between BCTS and Field Services staff to work together and provide some flexibility in staffing • 10% overhead will help out with “bottom line”

12. BCTS Disadvantages • Lots of unknowns • Business Unit could grow dependent on FFT work • May be setting themselves up for disappointment if FFT goes away • Cannot afford to lose money • Steep learning curve initially on the FFT way of doing things. • Misconceptions from majors that FFT will artificially lower costs

13. District Advantages • District will take on the budgeting and planning roles and run the program with assistance from Region staff • Keeps staff contract management skills up • Cross-training opportunities for district technicians in silvicultureactivities that didn’t exist before • More interaction on day to day matters with BCTS staff • BCTS and District staff are in the same building and communication is simplified.

14. We have had good co-operation between the two organizations in the past • Added engagement of District staff due to more variety and more field days for foresters and techs • More funding for the District

15. Technical Issues • All BCTS time and mileage will be tracked to determine if 10% overhead is correct • FFT planting contract is separate for this year only, after 2012, it will be one planting contract (possibly with two schedule B’s) so that it’s not apparent to bidders which blocks are FFT • For 2012, additional overplanning funding was added to account for additional time spent by BCTS on setting up new openings in their Genus system for blocks that are already onstream

16. BCTS will operate in Genus as per their regular procedures, and then download everything into RESULTS • Region has budgeted for some “transition” funding for Conifex, so that we can go to them as needs arise for assistance

17. Challenges • District needs to find staff time to implement new contract(s) and to run the program • Additional contract management courses required for both district and BCTS staff • Getting an efficient information tracking system in place. • Getting data into RESULTS in a timely and efficient manner given staffing issues and passing QA by CTQ • Accounting and payment procedures

18. To sum up: • Stay tuned....the proof is in the pudding, and we will let you know next year how it actually worked out!