Dungate Community Forest Updates

While the forestry sector may be struggling right now the Dungate Community Forest (Houston) was still able to post a profit this year.

By Rikki Schierer – Houston Today
Published: November 24, 2010 5:00 AM

That was the highlight of an update to council last week, given by Doug McRae, a director for the Dungate Community Forest. Each year, the community forest has an annual allowable cut (AAC) of 20,000 cubic metres. Usually Canfor harvests 80 per cent of that, McRae said, leaving 20 per cent for the community market, however markets were so tough this year that community markets were left with the bulk of the harvest.

“The economics were so poor that Canfor wasn’t interested, but they said they wanted to stay involved [in the future],” McRae said.

They were fortunate that nearly all of their AAC was harvested by non-Canfor harvesters, McRae said, who presented Mayor Bill Holmberg with a cheque worth $$$$$$ for the District’s portion of the partnership.

“Thanks for the funds, we certainly can use it,” Holmberg said.

The Dungate Community Forest is a Limited Partnership between the District of Houston and the Dungate Community Forest directors.

One-third of revenues goes to the District, with the community forest taking in the other two-thirds. Half of those funds supports the community, McRae said, while the other half goes towards the economic development of the community forest.

“Our intent is to get it out into the community,” McRae said of the profits. “We keep funds there to be able to help community groups when they need it.”

This year they were happy to sponsor two business awards at the Houston Business Awards, as well as fund two school scholarships, one for Houston Secondary School, the other for Houston Christian School.

Throughout this year they’ve been working with the Snowmobile Club, whose trail runs through the community forest. McRae was happy to tell council that they have that situation addressed, with Canfor also in the loop as to where the trail is.

Another issue that they’ve been facing has been people dumping refuse on the site.

“The community forest is so close to town and for whatever reason, people thought it was a dumping ground,” McRae said.

The Houston Secondary School kids fundraising for the 2011 Europe Trip came out to collect the refuse for a donation, he said, so the forest is looking much better now.

The community forest has a 10 year land lease that expires in 2013, the same time it’s management contract with Canfor expires. When that time comes, they’ll be looking to renew those contracts for a further 10 years, McRae said.

“The markets are slowly coming back and are looking a little bit better,” he said.

In fact, they’d like to see the AAC increased to 100,000 cubic metres over the next three years to deal with the mountain pine beetle infestation in the region. Foreseeing a two, maybe three year shelf life for these dying pine stands, the more they can get out now the more value there will be to them, McRae said.

“It would have to be fairly aggressive,” McRae said.

Council did question McRae on whether or not he was searching for alternative energy sources for the lumber, such as providing it for pellets, or perhaps supplying their timbre for the proposed CORE BioFuels project. McRae said that while the community forest is very well positioned to service these markets, for the time being they’re only exporting raw logs because that’s where the market is.