Harthills Forest
Consultation for Harthills Forest Long Term Forest Plan
Forest Management Certification Assessment of Harthills, Kemnay.
Introduction
RTS Ltd is conducting forest management and chain of custody certification of Harthills, Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The assessment will be implemented in September/ October 2016. Certification is provided by Control Union Certifications, accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – certificate number CUC-FM/COC-829328.
Scope of the Certification assessment
The forest management certification assessment will assess the environmental, silvicultural and socio-economic aspects of Harthills using the FSC-endorsed UK Woodland Assurance Standard. To obtain a copy of the applicable standard please contact UKWAS or refer to the websites listed below.
A fundamental aspect of the audit and certification process is that adverse social and environmental implications should be identified by the managers, consulted upon and minimized. We ask that you contact us as set out here – if you have any concerns regarding the management of this forest in this respect.
Your Input Sought – As a part of the assessment process we invite stakeholders to offer comment and feedback on Harthills forest management in relation to the requirements of the UKWAS Standard. We welcome input, either public or confidential, in whatever form is easiest and most secure for you. Your input will be valuable at any stage of the process, but we would prefer to receive your comments prior to the assessment in September/October so that we can take them into consideration in reaching a certification decision. Your options for communicating your observations to us are as follow:
Meet with an RTS Ltd team member during or shortly after the assessment. (contact James Reid for the precise dates and to make an appointment).
- Call and give comments to Harry Wilson, the RTS staff person responsible for coordinating this certification assessment.
- Submit written comments by mail, or email to Harry Wilson. Unless you request otherwise, these comments will be kept confidential and are solely for the purposes of assessing Harthills. The source of any information provided will be kept confidential and made available only to RTS and CUC.
- You can also submit any comments directly to CUC who are responsible for auditing the estate’s compliance with the standard.
Stakeholders who may wish to dispute any aspect of the forest certification process or decision can access CUC’s dispute resolution procedures.
The consultation period will be open from 8th of September 2016 to 7th of October 2016
Contact Addresses
RTS Ltd, Harry Wilson, Earnside House, Muthill Road, CRIEFF, PH7 4DH
Tel: 01764 652858, E-mail: harry.wilson@rts.ltd.uk
Control Union Certifications, Kara Greenaway, 8/9 King Charles Terrace, Sovereign Court, The Highway, London E1W 3HL
E-mail: kgreenaway@controlunion.com
FSC UK, 11-13 Great Oak Street, Llandidloes, Powys, SY18 6BU
MORE INFORMATION
public-briefing-paper-forest-entrance-harthills-1
RTS Forestry, on behalf of the owners, are in the process of preparing a long term forest plan for Harthills Forest. This will be a 20 year plan that will show detailed operational information for the first 10 years and an outline of the following 10. Prior to preparing the plan in detail, the outline plans are put out for consultation to parties who may have an interest in the proposals and as such we would like to include the local community in this part of the process. Through this consultation it is hoped that all the important factors affecting the management of the woods can be brought to our attention, if not already known, and can be incorporated in the plans where relevant.
Details of the initial proposals for the first phases of the plan and some of the key constraints are included in the initial Concept Maps. These maps are shown above and are also available to view via the link to Dropbox shown below. If you have problems accessing Dropbox a copy of them can be sent out to you on a CD. The Dropbox link is:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uz5741gk6fqu97m/AADrhBLFfSxLvexdoqvTA8fya?dl=0
Harthills Scoping Plan Outline
We would be grateful if you could give these documents your attention and respond to us in writing with your comments by the 5th August 2016. As a way of independently verifying the responses, could copies of any correspondence also go either by letter or by email to Tim Gordon-Roberts at the Forestry Commission Scotland, whose details are:
Forestry Commission
Grampian Conservancy
Portsoy Road
Huntly, AB54 4SJ
Email: tim.gordon-roberts@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
Phone: 03000676251