Forest Management Certification Assessment Report for - Rainforest ...

During the assessment period, the assessors interviewed a total of 96 people who were notaffiliated with Tembec. The team interviewed 32 Tembec representatives (both staff andconsultants). A description of the type and number of interested persons contacted andinterviewed is provided in Section 2.6. A brief description of comments made about Tembec’sactivities and the response of the team are provided in Section 3.1. A complete listing of thepersons interviewed is in Appendix VII.The team received a total of 43 written submissions, including 38 surveys, a letter from a localresident, a 6-page submission with analysis at the indicator level from a local environmentalgroup, a 4 page submission from a local resident with comments at the indicator level, and aletter expressing concerns about specific criteria from a local chapter of an environmental group.Report writing began in December 2005. Each assessor prepared findings for each of theindividual indicators in the 2005 BC standard in their area of responsibility. These findings werecirculated and reviewed by each team member. Four lengthy team conference calls were heldbetween December 15, 2005 and January 13, 2006 to discuss and confirm findings and to agreeon the language of Pre-conditions, Corrective Action Requests and Observations where nonconformancewith the Standard was identified. A first draft of the assessment findings(Appendix III of this report) was delivered to the SmartWood task manager for review onJanuary 17, 2006 and a full draft report was sent to Tembec on January 31, 2006. Tembecreviewed the draft and sent comments to the assessment team leader on May 12, 2006. The teamreviewed those comments and completed a final draft of the assessment report on June 23, 2006.The final draft of the assessment report was sent to Tembec and SmartWood for external peerreview. Two peer reviews were conducted in July 2006. SmartWood revised the report in thelight of the reviewer’s comments and sent the report to Tembec for final review. SmartWoodreached its decision late August 2006.2.6. Consultation processThroughout the assessment process, the team made a major effort to contact representatives ofgovernment, First Nations, contractors and workers, communities, tenure holders, interest groups,and interested individuals. Through various notices and newspaper ads, the team encouragedthese interested individuals and groups to provide the team with their comments about Tembecand their forest management practices. The notification process is described in Section 2.5above. The table below provides the number of individuals in various groupings or types whoreceived notice by mail or e-mail.As described in Section 2.5 above, the team interviewed 96 individuals representing a broadrange of interests during the assessment. The table below provides the number of individuals ineach of the various groupings or types who were interviewed by the team. These individualswere interviewed for one or more of the following reasons:• They were chosen by the team from the data base as a representative of a particular groupof interests or as people who represented several different interests (for example, wateruser, range tenure holder, and member of outdoor recreation group) and were contactedby the team; or,Page 13 of 89