I'd like to comment on the…

I'd like to comment on the expanse of items in the Ontario Forest Sector Strategy and how well it is laid out. As a Registered Professional Forester I greatly value maintaining a sustainably managed public forest.

I was impressed to see the mention of promoting good forest management and thus timber supply from private land as MNRF had long ago ran away from almost all private land forestry and there is great value in ensuring proper management as a large portion of the wood supply for southern Ontario mills comes from private land. The second item I want to note the importance of is promoting heating with wood. There is always a surplus of low quality wood that is perfect for use in heating and having a market for that would enable stand improvement activities to occur to make our forests healthier.

The one concern I want to highlight is that you mention "modernizing the forest management planning process and the approach to independent forest audits". Modernizing in a RPF's eyes is not all about reducing burden and cost, it should be about being able to ensure that we have sustainably managed forests. Even though Ontario's system is good there are poor practices occurring already on Crown land and with making the FMP process less rigid and relaxing IFAs it will only get worse and we won't be able to truly say we manage Ontario forests sustainably. Hold your ground on ensuring we have high quality management and look to find cost savings elsewhere.