Annual Reports of Forest Operations Inspection - Definitions and Explanations

Forest Operations for compliance reporting purposes means an operation that involves separate activities like road construction or fire prevention that are defined within a specific geographic area and may consist of separate units or segments. The primary operations of Access, Harvest, Renewal Maintenance and Protection are included.

Access Report:

operational compliance inspection reports of primary or secondary road construction as per the Forest Management Plan. Tertiary roads are not included and are inspected as part of Harvest operations.

 

Harvest Report:

operational compliance inspection reports of activities included in harvesting operations within a defined geographic unit as per the company operating plan or Annual Work Schedule

 

Renewal Report:

operational compliance inspection reports of specific silvicultural activities (excluding free to grow assessments or effects/effectiveness monitoring)

 

Maintenance Report:

operational compliance inspection reports of specific activities related to forest maintenance.

 

Protection:

operational compliance inspection reports of specific activities related to protection and fire prevention.

 

Note: Reports (numbers) are strictly a measure of effort, volume of inspections and intensity, are not considered measures of performance.

 

In Compliance:

a "positive" assessment provided to an operation or activity as to its status after consideration of all applicable laws, regulations, manuals, rules and requirements. All inspected activities are consistent with standards. For reporting purposes, compliant activities will include matters which have been assessed as less than perfect due to operational problems and accompanied by a clear explanation and rationale.

 

Not In Compliance (or Non Compliance):

a "negative" assessment provided to an operation or activity as to its status after consideration of all applicable laws, regulations, manuals, rules and requirements. One or more activities are found to be contrary to standards.

 

Note: MNR must verify all industry-submitted reports of non-compliance. Where a non-compliance cannot be confirmed after MNR inspection, the original report is to be amended accordingly. Significant infractions are caused by activities that were not documented in the Forest Management Plan (FMP) and negatively impact upon the objectives and strategies of the FMP. They may be measured against the sustainability criteria and indicators found in the Plan. These events would have to be specifically addressed in revisions of the Plan either as a plan amendment or in the periodic (5- year) revisions of the Plan.

Action Taken:

1. Ongoing: where a non-compliant inspection report or issue has yet to be assessed for an appropriate remedy and enforcement action by the MNR.
2. Warning or Communication: where an issue is not severe enough to warrant an enforcement action (e.g. Ministerial Order, or penalty), a notice (District Managers letter or notation on an inspection report) may be sent to a licensee advising of unacceptable practice or activity. While not contributing to the compliance history, such notices may be used to initiate escalation to more formal action.
3. Resolved by Self-Correction: where minor infractions occur e.g. rutting, compaction, leaving small amounts of merchantable material, and self-correction is possible.
4. Administrative Penalty: is a Notice of Intent letter by a District Manager to apply an administrative penalty and includes the value of the penalty. Administrative penalties are approved by the Regional Director.
   
   

Follow-up actions

This category provides an opportunity for the inspector to indicate on the form what follow-up actions will be necessary as a result of what has been observed. For example, in a case of non compliance where an inspector has recommended corrective action (s) it would be indicated that a further inspection is needed and/or training of the operator is required, etc.