Quinton Hayward

This year’s theme of “Everything is Connected” was present throughout the conference.  There was meaningful presentations around reintroducing fire as a landscape level management tool, creating more value from the harvested volume, recruitment and retention of professions into the industry, and collaborative planning with Indigenous groups on Forest Landscape Plans. There were also discussions on ecosystems integrity and technology to help evaluate ecosystem integrity, wildfire urban interface and continuing to build resiliency to wildfires and the path ahead for Indigenous relations. There was a strong focus on Indigenous joint-planning management and decision making. It is very clear in the presentations and from the nation members present at the conference, that nothing will happen on the ground in forestry without First Nations being involved. This is consistent with the government’s direction and should not be a surprise or anything new to those working with natural resources.