Canadian Standards Association
Canfor has CSA certification for a large proportion of our operations in British Columbia and Alberta, with two separate certificates: One for multi-partner sites in northern British Columbia and northern Alberta, and one for the Fort St. John Code Pilot.
The 2014 CSA surveillance re-certification audit of Canfor’s operations in British Columbia and Alberta found our sustainable forest management system meets ISO 14001 and CSA Z809 requirements.
The audit team found a high level of conformance with Forest Management System requirements and applicable regulatory requirements on the field sites visited, and identified good practices such as:
- Mackenzie uses a rust risk free-growing tool that predicts future rust incidence and maps high-risk rust areas to ensure stands remain free growing.
- Radium implemented additional procedures such as guards on culverts to limit or prevent sedimentation above the village’s domestic water intake.
- Grande Prairie worked with the Foothills Stream Crossing Partnership to develop a stream crossing data program that improves remediation planning and reporting.
- Fort St. John introduced procedures to help it meet Migratory Bird Act Regulations such as identifying stands most likely to have active nests so biologists can undertake detailed bird surveys that are considered when scheduling harvest operations.
- Vanderhoof’s Plateau mill has introduced a small chipping facility on a trial basis so it can use logging residue that was once burned on site.
- Prince George installed well-sized and properly located buffers along various stream classes, and effective water control on roads in the blocks.
- Houston took a lead role in proposing an alternate plan for establishing old growth management areas to protect high environmental values while reducing the impact on timber supply.
- Our company’s structure management system provides better direction to staff regarding forest management and regulatory requirements when they are planning, installing, maintaining or deactivating bridges and major culverts.
The audit found good progress on six open minor non-conformances, and closed five. The one remaining was downgraded to an opportunity for improvement.
Three new minor non-conformities were identified:
- The 2012 audit identified a number of weaknesses related to indicator forecasts in the Nicola Thompson Fraser plan. It was listed as minor because there is evidence this is being addressed.
- Standard work procedures offering direction to staff and contractors were implemented in the majority of instances but there were some weaknesses, including poor sediment control on a road (Radium), inadequate deactivation of some in-block roads (Vanderhoof), and garbage left on harvesting sites (Fort St. James).
- Monitoring and measuring procedures were implemented in most cases with a few weaknesses noted. A camp inspection had not been completed on one site (Mackenzie), harvesting sites had not been inspected frequently enough (Vanderhoof and Fort St. James), and a log fill crossing was not removed during a final inspection (Vanderhoof).
There were also systemic opportunities for improvement cited related to document control procedures – in isolated instances equipment operators did not have copies in their machines of required documents such as block maps or emergency response plans.