SWITCHING GEARS Most of the forest residuals ACFOR collected in its first few years of operation were sold to pulp mills. This changed in 2010, shortly after Ponsse designed a new harvester called the Ponnse Fox. LeBlanc says he was the second one to buy the vehicle in North America. “I knew that machine was a great tool to do thinnings, so I called up Alpa Equipment and said ‘I want that machine.’ Then convinced my banks it would increase productivity,” he said. It turned out to be a more sound investment than LeBlanc expected. “A month after I bought the machine the pulp market crashed and my pulp prices were cut by 50 per cent,” he says. “But with the new Ponsse Fox we increased our productivity by 40 per cent.” Even with the reduction in pulp prices not affecting him as much as it could have, prior to his Ponsse purchase, LeBlanc knew he needed to find an alternative to selling his residuals for pulp. “I was walking around the forest looking at all the waste and thought, ‘This is energy here,’” he says. So LeBlanc called up KOB, a biomass boiler manufacturer now owned by Viessmann, and inquired about recent installa-tions in the Maritimes. “They said ‘Yeah, we just installed a boiler in P.E.I. at Evange-line School,’ so I went to see the system,” he says. The timing of the tour worked well for ACFOR. P.E.I.’s gov-ernment was looking for ways to move away from dependence on fossil fuels and become energy independent. In 2012, the P.E.I. government decided it would replace fossil fuel-powered equipment with biomass-fuelled boilers in facilities across the province. The government released a tender to install biomass boilers in more than 20 facilities across the province. “We got a lot of those contracts, I think 12,” recalls LeBlanc. “We’re installing those now. So far, we’ve installed eight.” The business model for the projects is that LeBlanc’s company pays the capital to install each system then the facilities buy the heat back from ACFOR based on a 20-year contract. “This gives us stability,” explains LeBlanc. A NEW GENERATION OF LOGGERS LeBlanc believes it is important to do his part to train the next generation of forest managers. “I’m trying to promote more young people to get into the field,” he said. “What we look for are young people with good attitudes that want to restore the Acadian forests. That’s the starting point.” People who are passionate about restoring the forests have a tendency to learn the necessary skills for the jobs relatively quickly, adds LeBlanc. In addition to helping sculpt the forest industry’s next generation of harvesters and managers, ACFOR is technologically savvy, which is another good reason to hire a younger generation of workers. ACFOR offers wood lot owners a real-time web platform they can use to see the progress of operations in their lots without being in the field. The company’s online project management system, allows the lot owners to see photos, deadlines, wood delivery reports and more. The web platform also allows for in-dividuals to leave comments regarding the operations that can be shared with family and friends. ACFOR is also active on social media channels, including Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, and offers people opportunities to learn about forestry management online. POWERED BY PONSSE LeBlanc loves using Ponsse equipment in his selective harvesting operations, and it shows in his lineup. ACFOR’s current equipment arsenal includes two Ponsse Fox harvesters, one Ponsse Beaver harvester and two Ponsse Wisents; in addition to a Rottne forwarder; Hyundai 160 excavator; and a Morbark M20R chipper. Ponsse make an active effort to listen to its customers and hear about ways to improve the equipment. “We have a good relationship with the engineers at Ponsse, they always listen to us,” says LeBlanc. GETTING OWNERS INVOLVED LeBlanc likes to get the wood lot owners heavily involved in his company’s operations. He calls it, “The ACFOR experience.” “We’ll invite the family and do a course in the woods about why we are trying to regenerate the forest, and what are the toler-ant species. Basically we use the lot owners as our marketing, so they can educate their neighbours about why we are doing this and why it’s important.” • For more on biomass harvesting, go to canadianbiomassmagazine.ca 36 Canadian BIOMASS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015
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