Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, committee members and distinguished guests.
I'd like to say a few words about the Chief Forester's mandate.
This position was created in 2005 and is governed by the Sustainable Forest Development Act. The key elements of our mission are to determine the allowable cut of Quebec's public forest, of course, to inform decision makers through our analytical work, and to keep the public informed about the state of publicly owned forests.
An allowable cut is the maximum annual volume that can be harvested by species on public land, while ensuring forest renewal and evolution, based on sustainable management objectives. Once the determination has been made, the Chief Forester submits it to the minister, who is responsible for wood allocation and forest planning.
We also have a mandate to advise the minister on various issues or topics, such as the direction and planning of forest research, activities to optimize forest management strategies, and any issue that we feel requires government attention or action. In fact, that's why we've provided the minister with advice on the impact of the proposed federal order-in-council on woodland caribou and on Quebec's forestry potential.
The minister may also entrust us with any forestry mandate and request our opinion on any forestry issue, whether it concerns private or public forests.
There is an important aspect the committee should be aware of. From a sustainable development perspective, the Chief Forester performs the duties entrusted to him with the independence granted to him by this Act.
That independence is expressed in a number of ways: his retainer, his own strategic plan and a separate website from that of the Ministry. In addition, we manage our own communications, produce our own reports and render our decisions without interference. We also have investigative powers, meaning we are vested with the powers and immunity set out in the Act respecting commissions of inquiry.
When the emergency decree was presented, following the federal government's announcement of the draft emergency decree to protect the three caribou populations of Val-d'Or, Charlevoix and Pipmuacan, respectively, we undertook, on our own initiative, our impact analyses of forestry opportunities. Our analyses focused on territories known as “provisional zones”. These areas have been demarcated by the federal government. In these provisional zones, no forestry activity is permitted, nor any harvesting or silvicultural work.
Since there is no forestry activity, we used the same method as when we do an impact analysis for strict protected areas. No adjustments were made to existing silvicultural strategies. In the absence of information on their continued application, the Quebec government's woodland and montane caribou recovery plans for 2024–2028 have been maintained in the analysis and the territory outside the provisional zones. This information is included in the documents I submitted to the commission.
Our impact analysis also enabled us to note that accessibility to certain territories could be compromised, as some of them are almost entirely surrounded by provisional zones. This situation could therefore result in landlocked areas and additional repercussions, i.e., reduced forestry potential.
I'd like to emphasize another point. Zones of interest have not been evaluated on our side because, as part of the consultation, provisional zones can stretch into zones of interest. We only do this when the contours are known and public. If restrictive modalities in areas of interest and around provisional zones were to add up in terms of reduced harvesting or reduced silviculture, of course the repercussions would be different.
In the provisional zones, the analysis covered 1.6 million hectares. Of this 1.6 million hectares, 1.2 million hectares contributes to forestry potential, i.e., these hectares are eligible for harvesting and silviculture.
This affects four regions: Abitibi-Témiscamingue for the Val-d'Or herd, Capitale-Nationale and Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean for the Charlevoix herd, and Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean and Côte-Nord for the Pipmuacan herd. As for the impact on forestry potential, in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, we're talking about a decrease of 562,000 cubic metres…