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Vancouver councillors have approved an updated plan for growing the city’s urban forest, but a forestry professor says there are challenges ahead. The city’s goal is to increase its canopy cover – how much of the city is covered by leaves and branches when seen from above – from about 25 per cent of the city to 30 per cent by 2050, according to the updated urban forest strategy. …Stephen Sheppard, a professor emeritus at the University of B.C.’s forestry faculty, said Vancouver’s 30 per cent canopy cover target is very achievable – but he noted there is cause for concern. In the wake of the B.C. government pushing hard for cities to increase housing density, Sheppard advised councillors to minimize the loss of existing urban trees when approving rezoning proposals. …Multiple councillors pointed out the stark divide in canopy cover between neighbourhoods.

Kari Stuart-Smith

Kari Stuart-Smith, a wildlife ecologist and Manager of Biodiversity & Wildlife at Canfor, has dedicated over 30 years to advancing sustainable forest management in the East Kootenay. …One of her notable initiatives is the development of a new Old Growth Management Plan for Canfor’s Tree Farm License (TFL) 14 southwest of Golden. This project involved a collaborative group from Canfor, the Province of BC, First Nations, and Wildsight, with technical guidance from Forsite. Using LiDAR data to assess forest stand structure, the team identified high-quality old growth areas, leading to a plan with higher ecological values than previous models. …Stuart-Smith also played a key role in identifying and developing management strategies for High Conservation Value Areas (HCVAs) in the East Kootenay, a requirement for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.

Nadir Erbilgin

University of Alberta research is showing how trees and fungi team up to survive and stay healthy against insect attacks — an alliance that could lead to more resilient forests. Endophytes — tiny micro-organisms made up of bacteria and fungi living harmlessly in the tissues of white spruce — help the tree defend itself by producing toxic compounds that repel or kill eastern spruce budworm, the new study showed. The discovery provides a “clear, detailed explanation” of how the fungi help protect the tree against the defoliating insect, says forest entomologist Nadir Erbilgin, a professor in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences who supervised the study. …Knowing specific endophytes can boost tree defences or repel budworms also offers possibilities for selecting, breeding or inoculating trees with beneficial fungal partners, he notes.

Rumours spread like wildfire — and rumours about wildfire are no exception. In Canada’s westernmost province, the BC Wildfire Service is taking to its social media channels to tackle misinformation with an unlikely tool: kindness. Take the term “human caused.” Wildfire agencies use it to describe all wildfires that aren’t started by lightning, but many people have incorrectly conflated that with arson and the idea has taken hold. …This year, you’ll see the government account responding to those comments with a playful, gentle tone and a wealth of facts. Jean Strong, a digital communications officer with the government agency, says her team is trying a new tack this year, after successfully experimenting with the approach during the 2024 wildfire season. …The end goal is to increase public understanding about both the basics and complexities of wildfire science and response, she says.

The B.C. government-run corporation responsible for administering a fifth of the province’s annual logging quota says it will pause new operations that overlap with habitat of a threatened caribou herd north of Revelstoke. The pause is expected to last until planning has restarted or government gives BCTS direction, a BCTS planning forester wrote. “We are not operating within caribou core areas,” the email reads. …A statement from the Ministry of Forests said the logging pause was part of a collaboration with First Nations, industry, as well as local and federal governments. …Eddie Petryshen, a conservation specialist with Wildsight, said about 112,000 hectares of BCTS tenure overlap in some way with critical habitat of the Columbia North caribou herd. …Logging has combined with oil and gas exploration to carve up forests across B.C., opening up paths for predators to hunt mountain caribou.

Cliff White

The agony of last summer’s Jasper wildfire casts a long shadow across the Bow Valley. The blaze left a smouldering $1.23 billion in devastating costs to the Jasper area, while also leaving experts predicting — and residents worrying — that other pristine mountain communities such as Banff and Canmore could be next. …“It’s just so primed to burn, you can’t stop it — I don’t think Banff has time,” Cliff White, a former Parks Canada forestry scientist said last summer. …With the lack of follow-up on tending to prescribed burn areas and other breaks “we are doing about one-fifth of what needs to be done just for maintenance, and given the backlog of biomass accumulated, we are at about one-tenth of what should be done for the next two to three decades,” said the Cliff White.

VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board has released the results of its investigation into a complaint about the BC Wildfire Service’s (BCWS) use of planned ignitions during the 2023 Downton Lake wildfire near Gun Lake. A planned ignition is a deliberate use of fire in an emergency to remove unburned fuel from an area, typically between a control line and the wildfire. Burning this fuel can help contain the wildfire and make fire suppression efforts more efficient. The complaint, submitted by three Gun Lake residents, raised concerns that a planned ignition conducted by BCWS on Aug. 1, 2023, contributed to the destruction of more than 40 homes on the west side of the lake. The board assessed whether BCWS complied with the Wildfire Act and if its decision to use a planned ignition near the complainants’ properties was reasonable, given the conditions at the time. The board found BCWS complied with the Wildfire Act and BCWS’s decision to conduct the ignition in this emergency situation was based on sound forest practices and a reasonable assessment of the wildfire threat.

Additional coverage from Canadian Press in Times Colonist: Planned ignitions in 2023 wildfires were ‘reasonable,’ Forest Practices Board rules

Non-timber forest products (NTFP) provide a wealth of natural resources for the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB). …OIB wants to build a path forward for the sustainable use and commercialization of NTFP through a project supported by the BC Indigenous Forest Bioeconomy Program. The project started as a feasibility study into the commercial potential of NTFP and turned into an initiative once community members wanted to grow their connection with the land and traditional practices, according to Vincent Dufour, a registered professional forester with Silviculture and Private Managed Forest, and Siya Forestry. …One of the main goals of the project is to develop a full inventory of NTFP across the OIB traditional territory in the South Okanagan to the West Kootenays and surrounding regions. …Dufour works alongside local community members and experts in mapping the abundance and availability of species such as mushrooms, soapberries, blackcap raspberries, wild mint, juniper and wild roses.

Garry Merkel

Canada’s first Indigenous land stewardship degree puts Indigenous law, governance and connection to land at the heart of environmental education. Hayley Toderian, 29, waited two years to enrol. Now, she’s part of the inaugural class in a groundbreaking undergraduate program at the University of British Columbia, the first of its kind. The four-year degree was created in response to growing recognition of the need for Indigenous-led approaches to land management and environmental challenges, land reclamation and environmental policy. …The program, housed within UBC Forestry, goes beyond ecological practices to include the political, legal and ethical frameworks of Indigenous land stewardship. …Garry Merkel, a Tahltan forester and the director of the Centre for Indigenous Land Stewardship at UBC Forestry, said students explore Indigenous systems of land tenure, resource allocation and dispute resolution — frameworks developed and maintained by communities over centuries.

The mayors of North Cowichan and Nanaimo are urging the province to increase the amount of timber that can be harvested annually in the province. In a letter to Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar, North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas and Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog said that despite its recent struggles, the forest industry continues to be a major part of the local economies of both municipalities, providing high-paying jobs while contributing millions of dollars in taxes every year that help pay for municipal services and build critical infrastructure. …They said the province’s budget for 2025 projects that only 30 million cubic metres of timber will be allowed to be harvested on Crown land this year, further declining to 29 million cubic metres by 2027, while more than 60 million cubic metres were allowed to be harvested in 2024. …The mayors also said they want to see the province’s permit and regulatory processes for timber harvesting streamlined.