Salmon Arm, BC – Forsite is excited to announce that Frontline Operations Group is joining the Forsite team as we continue to build an innovative and industry leading fire services team. This collaboration further expands our wildfire and forestry expertise, fortifying our commitment to our clients across Canada as we respond strategically and collaboratively to wildfire risks. Frontline Operations is an industry leader in integrated wildfire and forestry services. Frontline Operation’s partners John and Andy have five decades of combined wildland fire management experience. Along with their staff, they will bolster the Forsite team to apply significant industry expertise, innovation and operational delivery excellence to wildfire risk assessment, community planning, fuel management, cultural and prescribed fire, and wildfire operations.
The forest industry in B.C. supplies building materials for homes and businesses, furniture, and the fast-growing mass timber construction industry, not to mention pulp for paper. The good thing about trees is that they grow back. Unlike oil or coal or metals dug up out of the ground, we can ensure a fresh supply of timber pretty much in perpetuity, if we manage our forests in the right way… Unfortunately, we haven’t always done that, and now we’re faced with an ecosystem that’s under stress, with too few stands of old growth left, and an industry that is used to having access to more wood than is actually sustainable. …The goal for forestry in B.C. has to be to cut fewer trees, while turning what we do cut into useful products that we can export across Canada and the world. It’s been a dream of multiple B.C. governments, and no one has managed to make it work.
Striding over moss and crackling branches, Larry Pynn and Bruce Coates hiked deep into a North Cowichan forest Sunday to show us their find. “I get shivers, you know I love it, I really do,” said Bruce Coates, president of the Cowichan Valley Naturalists’ Society. “It feels so good to find these last few,” said Larry Pynn, a Cowichan resident and publisher of 
…Globally, in all Mercer operating areas, we’ve experienced unseasonably warm temperatures, extreme drought conditions, and wildfires increasing in both number and severity. Mercer Forestry Services (MFS) has worked with the BC Wildfire Service to help fight wildfires by using logging equipment to build fire breaks and douse flames. …These natural disturbances can have a major effect on the environment, including the carbon balance. …Depending on the severity of a wildfire, however, burnt trees within the stand are not wasted. …Time is of the essence to harvest this timber, as the longer a tree sits after a forest fire, the less moisture it will contain. Therefore, MFS aims to harvest approved stands as soon as safely possible after it’s burnt to salvage as much of the tree as we can. …these areas affected by natural forces and harvesting can be replanted, regrown, and thrive once again. 
The state of the provincial forestry industry and its future is this week’s focus for Premier David Eby and other key industry leaders. …Bob Brash, TLA’s executive director, told Black Press that the association is looking for specific measures to help reduce what he called the “fair bit of concern and uncertainty” in the industry. …Forest companies have also lamented declines in the annual allowable cut with the proviso that the actual amount harvested is generally less. “Predictability on fibre supply is really critical,” said Linda Coady of the BC Council of Forest Industries. While the annual allowable cut was around 80 million cubic-meters per year around 2007… it will level out somewhere between 40 and 50 million cubic meters by 2030 – quite a swing. …Other issues facing include government’s deferral of nearly 1.7 million hectares of old growth forest.
Ribbons of smoke curl up out of the forests framing the Trans Canada Highway as drivers enter and exit Banff’s townsite in the picturesque Rocky Mountains of western Alberta. There, Parks Canada crews have been hard at work trying to remove the fuel on the forest floor and canopy in Banff National Park. “What that involves is pruning and thinning the forest so we can reduce the amount of fuel load in terms of wildfire risk reduction,” said David Tavernini, Fire and Vegetation Specialist with Parks Canada. “This helps us manage wildfires safely and be able to protect the communities, people and infrastructure,” he added. This season, about 34 hectares of forest with be thinned. The forests in Banff National Park are not only old and beyond what is considered their natural burning cycle, but mountain pine beetle is also wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.
Owners of a property near Avola, BC (the complainants) are concerned that:
The B.C. government and Blueberry River First Nations have reached a historic agreement that will guide them forward in a partnership approach to land, water and resource stewardship that ensures Blueberry River members can meaningfully exercise their Treaty 8 rights, and provide stability and predictability for industry in the region. “This agreement provides a clear pathway to get the hard work started on healing and restoring the land, and start on the joint planning with strong criteria to protect ecosystems, wildlife habitat and old forests,” said Chief Judy Desjarlais of the Blueberry River First Nations. “With the knowledge and guidance of our Elders, this new agreement will ensure there will be healthy land and resources for current and future generations to carry on our people’s way of life.”
I learned of the battle over clearcut logging on Haida Gwaii in the 1970s. Forest companies had been denuding much of the islands by clearcut logging, which had generated growing opposition. In the early 1980s, I flew to Haida Gwaii to interview loggers, forestry officials, government bureaucrats, environmentalists and Indigenous people. One of the people I interviewed was a young Haida artist named Guujaaw, who had led the opposition to logging for years. Unemployment was high in Haida communities, and logging generated desperately needed jobs. So I asked Guujaaw why he opposed the logging. He answered, “Our people have determined that Windy Bay and other areas must be left in their natural condition so that we can keep our identity and pass it on to following generations. The forests, those oceans, are what keep us as Haida people today.”
I will be the first to admit supporting the establishment of a wood pellet processing plant in Williams Lake which I thought would finally reduce the burning of logging slash piles around our communities. …In an article entitled “Cut Down Trees Just to Burn Them? We Can Do Better,” the authors describe how there is an alarming amount of logs being harvested to make wood pellets rather than using the residual logging material that was first used in the early pellet facilities. Their research, including photographs shows an alarming trend. …While the log decks shown in the photos are huge some of the material appears to be small diameter and possibly deciduous and much appears of usable quality for alternative uses.
PRINCE GEORGE, BC
