From a forest growth and yield perspective, site index is the most common metric for assessing and quantifying forest land productivity. Site index is also one of the most important independent variables in currently available growth models which may be available for forecasting the growth of the reclaimed forest in the mineable oil sands area. Comparing natural stand (fire origin) site index with post reclamation site index will likely be an important component of demonstrating equivalent land capability for reclaimed land classified for commercial forest end land use. For those reasons, the FPTG is proposing to conduct a retrospective stem analysis site index project to address the following objectives: -Quantify observed juvenile tree height age trajectories, and projected site index estimates for commercial forest tree species growing on reclaimed oil sands sites. -Quantify observed tree height age trajectories, and realized site index, for commercial tree species growing on natural (fire origin) forest sites that are typical for the mineable oil sands area. -Compare natural and reclaimed tree height age trajectories (and site indices) with a view to assessing natural versus reclaimed forest productivity. This work will be conducted over two years. The scope of work in 2012 and described in this Request for 2012 and described in this Request for Proposal is the first phase of work and includes the field work to collect tree sections on reclaimed sites in 2012. The tree sections will be collected by the contractor and the contractor will coordinate shipment of the samples from the leases to the Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre, 5320 122 St Edmonton, Alberta, T6H 4T6. The contractor will submit a field report and digital spreadsheet summarizing the Site Number, Stand Number, Plot Number, Tree Number, Cookie Height, and Cookie Number for each top height tree that was stem sectioned.