LEFT: Ponsse’s line of harvesters is the equipment of choice for ACFOR’s operations in the Moncton area. RIGHT: Mathieu LeBlanc is so passionate about restoring the Acadian forests that he quit his job at a forestry consulting firm in Western Quebec, sold his home, and moved himself and his pregnant wife to the Moncton area to start his forestry restoration and management business, ACFOR. school part-time and obtained a certificate in project management. When his wife got pregnant in 2006, they had a serious talk about where they want to raise their family and work. “The sawmills were closing down, all the companies were going bankrupt, and I said to my wife, ‘There’s nobody restoring the Acadian forest [in the Moncton area]. Why don’t we both quit our jobs, sell the house and I’m going to try and start a forestry management company,’” he said. “Without hesitation she said ‘yes.’ I was very lucky that she supported me from the get-go.” Of course, the fact that Moncton was his wife’s hometown didn’t hurt. The opportunity LeBlanc saw for his forest management com-pany stemmed from wood lot owners in the area having limited options for their forests. “Basically the wood lot owners had two options: clear-cut or conservation, nothing in-between.” he says. “For me, it was the best time to start the business because machinery was cheap, although financing it was a challenge.” LeBlanc started by managing one wood lot where he per-formed selective thinning and the business quickly grew ‘like wildfire.’ “People who hadn’t cut their wood lots when the prices were high, those were the people that called me,” he recalls. “They said, ‘You’re doing what we wanted. We’ve been waiting for someone like you for a long time – that cares about the forest and manages the ecosystem, wildlife and recreational [activities].’” Through word-of-mouth the company was successfully ob-taining contracts from a variety of wood lot owners, and eventu-ally landed a three-year contract to manage the municipal forests in Dieppe, Riverview and Moncton. W’l se yo a th Woo Pelle ssociatio of Canad’ GM i Halifa November 3-5, 2015 Halifax Canadian BIOMASS 35
Canadian Biomass September/October 2015: Page 35
