Category Archives: Forestry

Kamloops, B.C. –The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation is proud to announce over $8 million in funding for 167 fish and wildlife conservation projects across B.C. this year, with nearly $1 million allocated to projects in the Thompson-Okanagan Natural Resource Region. …Among this year’s projects in the Okanagan is a multi-year cougar study; by fitting GPS collars on forty cougars, the project leaders will better understand their predation rates of deer and other species and their movement behaviour. “This is B.C.’s most comprehensive cougar study, with a focus on the predation behaviour, habitat use, and impacts of harvest on cougars,” says project leader Adam Ford. “In spite of their high profile in B.C., we have very little information on the effects of cougar predation on prey distribution and survival, and the effects of human (e.g. road density, forestry) and natural (e.g. fire) landscape change on cougar habitat use.”

Chinook Community Forest has been hard hit by the Parrot Lookout wildfire. Roughly 2,000 ha has burned yet at last report, the fire has slowed down. The fire has not yet been actioned due to ta lack of escape routes and is considered too dangerous… We welcome Stephen Lorimer from the Qala:Yit Community Forest to the BCCFA Board of Directors. Steve lives in  Ladysmith, and we are thrilled to have a director from Vancouver Island. He has worked in the forest sector for over 50 years and was a forester on the team that built the Qala:Yit Community Forest, a partnership with the people in the Cowichan Lake communities and Pacheedaht First Nation… A new bulletin, published by the BC Forest Safety Council, gives valuable suggestions on how to incorporate community safety into the work of building and maintaining good relationships with neighbours on and off the community forest. Click the Read More for the full newsletter.

EDMONTON, AB – Forests and trees contribute to biodiversity, protect and conserve water resources, and lower emissions by capturing and storing excess carbon. In doing so, they clean the air we breathe and help cool urban centres. …Natural Resources Canada and the City of Edmonton announced $47.8-million in federal funding from the Government of Canada’s 2 Billion Trees program. This funding will support the planting of 1.5 million trees in Edmonton and is matched by $47.8 million in municipal funding. The municipal investment is part of the City of Edmonton’s $66-million new Greener As We Grow tree-planting project. Over the next eight years, Edmonton will increase its urban forest canopy by planting approximately 300 hectares in naturalized areas, boulevards, parks and open spaces. The city has a target of having two million trees planted by 2031 as part of its Urban Forest Asset Management goal of achieving 20-percent canopy cover by 2071.

Coverage in the Edmonton Journal: Edmonton invests to increase urban forest canopy

MANITOBA, CANADA – Thousands of trees will be planted later this year at the Rosenthal Nature Park northwest of Mitchell. Ken Fosty is a Certified Arborist and Forestry Specialist with Tree Canada. He says at the end of September, they will bring in a crew of tree planters to plant 10,000 white spruce seedlings throughout the park area. He notes the seedlings will be planted in the open area on the west side of the park. A lot of the seedlings will be underplanted throughout the Trembling aspen and poplar woodlot. Fosty says the spruce trees will provide more thermal cover, shelter, shade, beauty and habitat for wildlife. Fosty explains white spruce is Manitoba’s provincial tree. He notes the white spruce tree is very versatile and has a good chance of surviving rodents and deer. 

Royann Petrell

It is only a little bird, weighing a few ounces, but the marbled murrelet is known for its remarkable ability to fly far out to sea to catch fish before returning in the darkness of night to inland treetop nests on mossy limbs.  It also inspires outsized devotion among those who want to study and protect it.  Royann Petrell of Courtenay on Vancouver Island has been an avid bird watcher since childhood, but in retirement she has taken up the cause of protecting the marbled murrelet’s habitat.  The seabird has been listed as “threatened” for decades as habitat loss on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border adds to its precarious existence.  Petrell’s birding activities have even landed her in court, fighting a logging company that put up gates in the contentious Fairy Creek area where protests over old-growth logging landed hundreds in handcuffs.

Todd Loewen

Working to develop an incentive program for Alberta’s forestry industry is among the directives contained in Premier Danielle Smith’s mandate letter to Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen. Smith’s letter says this would work along the lines of the province’s Agri-Processing Tax Credit. He would work with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade on this idea. The letter to the Central Peace-Notley MLA also includes coming up with a plan to add 900 more campsites over the next ten years and developing a conservation and recreation strategy for Crown land among the top priorities. There are also suggestions about reducing wait times for permit and license approvals and designing a plan specific to Forestry and Parks to attract young people to jobs available in the sector.

There will soon be no way for old-growth logging to go undetected in B.C. An online tracking system developed by an international environmental group goes live today. It will enable the public to monitor where old growth is being logged and is designed to hold the province accountable for promises to reform forestry, said project lead Angeline Robertson with Stand.earth. Forest Eye — an online mapping system and database — employs satellite imagery, remote sensing technology and government data to detect and alert users to logging and road-building in the most at-risk old-growth forests in the province, Robertson said. The mapped logging alerts will pinpoint old-growth logging two to four weeks after it begins. Most importantly, it will also determine if it occurred in areas considered for logging deferrals since 2020, she said. Site users can subscribe to get alerts or updates about activity in their areas of interest.

Tofino is teetering on a water crisis. The streams on nearby Meares Island that supply the resort community with drinking water are still flowing and the reservoirs are full, but unprecedented drought conditions have the town on edge. A packed town hall meeting Tuesday night was told that if the drought persists, more drastic measures would be on the table. …Mayor Dan Law recognized First Nations and protesters who defied court injunctions in the 1980s and stopped old-growth logging on Meares Island, where four creeks fill reservoirs and feed a sea-floor pipeline that supplies the town with water. …since May 1, Tofino has received 19 millimetres of rain. On average, cumulative rainfall for the period is 249 mm. …if the reservoirs show diminishing supplies or there is a massive wildfire, Rodgers said, stage 4 measures could include closing some businesses and resorts and limiting access to the town by visitors. 

Fire season has arrived and experts say it’s time to put your rainy day habits behind you. “All we can really do is adapt to more extreme drought,” said John Richardson, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia. …With El Niño superimposing on top of the climate effects occurring, Richardson said now is the time for people to tap the brakes on water usage. …cutting shower time down from four minutes to two minutes an individual would save up to 20 litres of water per shower, per person. …B.C.’s premier alongside the Emergency Minister Bowinn Ma have both stressed the severity of the situation in the province, citing these levels of drought have never occurred this early in the summer before now. Two-thirds of the province’s water basins are currently at Drought Level four or five, out of a scale of zero to five for severity.

Additional coverage in the Campbell River Mirror: Stage 2 watering restrictions in place in Campbell River to maintain fire safety, environment

A new watchdog satellite tracking map found 2,600 hectares of that forest — almost all big ancient trees — were slated for deferral by the province in 2020, but were logged anyways. The number is expected to grow significantly as more data is vetted. …The government data Forest Eye is collecting worries Stand.earth’s Tegan Hansen that not much has changed. Hansen said that in many cases, forests aren’t being given that chance to come back, instead being turned into mono-crop plantations and sprayed with glyphosate to eliminate fire-resistant species. “Effectively, we are destroying these forests,” said Hansen. “It’s not considered illegal logging because it is permitted by our governments.” …Forest Eye is designed to help people understand what’s happening in forests either next door or down a remote logging road thousands of kilometres away. Hansen said her group will support people who want to present the information to elected officials.

George Harris & Quentin Goodbody

The Ladysmith and District Historical Society along with the Ecoforestry Institute Society have partnered on the newest exhibit at the museum on First Avenue, Treemendous: Our Fascinating Forests. Stz’uminus elder George Harris shared stories relating to the continuing importance of the forest to the Stz’umimus First Nation. The museum plays a role as a learning centre in which the present is explained through examining the past, thus providing a foundation for charting a way to the future” said Quentin Goodbody of the historical society. The exhibit starts by looking at the growth of forests, focusing on the coastal Douglas fir. It then introduces the importance of forests to the Indigenous Peoples, provides glimpse of their knowledge gained and explains some of their forest management practices. The exhibit moves on to commercial exploitation of forests.

VICTORIA — British Columbia is expecting the arrival of 100 firefighters from Brazil today, adding to the province’s growing international wildfire force. BC Wildfire Service spokesman Cliff Chapman says about 500 international firefighters are already in B.C., boosting the ranks of the more than 2,000 provincial wildfire service personnel on the front lines battling hundreds of blazes. He says the firefighters from Brazil will join firefighters from Mexico, the United States and Australia currently in the province. Bowinn Ma, B.C.’s emergency management and climate readiness minister, recently requested 1,000 international firefighters through the non-profit Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which co-ordinates national and international fire management. Chapman says the Brazilians and the international firefighters already in B.C. will provide much-needed relief and assistance to crews battling almost 400 fires currently burning in the province.

A group of North Okanagan-Shuswap residents are looking to prevent logging in a 255-hectare area of land near Gardom Lake by having it recognized as a protected area. At its July 20 meeting, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District received a presentation by biologist Wayne McCrory on the proposed Mallory Ridge Protected Area. Accompanying McCrory in the gallery was a large number of people behind the effort to protect the area of Crown land that is a popular hiking spot. McCrory told the board Mallory Ridge was recognized as an important conservation area and proposed as a regional park in 2000 and 2008. …“If planned logging goes ahead, it is our professional opinion that significant habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity values of this small island of diverse habitats, remnant of an ancient transition ecosystem, will be the outcome,” McCrory and Peters conclude in the study.

The N.W.T. government took the extraordinary step Thursday of issuing a fire ban for almost the entire South Slave region, a measure the territory has never before used. The ban is needed to protect against “continued extreme fire danger and extraordinary weather conditions to protect communities and protect wildfire fighting resources by limiting avoidable person-caused fires,” a news release reads. On Wednesday, the N.W.T. Métis Nation posted to Facebook a letter it received from the territory’s forest supervisor, informing them the restriction would be coming. “The South Slave region has been experiencing extreme fire danger for several weeks, with forests that are tinder-dry, making fire control very challenging,” the letter reads. …The letter points to the issue of not having enough resources to fight more fires. Firefighters from elsewhere in Canada, who the territory would usually rely on to bolster its crews, are tied up fighting fires in other jurisdictions.

Molly Hudson

Like most resource sectors, forestry has long been seen as an industry staffed, led, and dominated by the culture of men. But it is changing. The situation has been progressing thanks to the kinds of leadership we’ve seen over the past few decades that acknowledge the need to change the industry – the need to knock down barriers that impact different people in different ways. While this began with conversations of women with other women, it has grown to include everyone in the important efforts to make the sector a place where women do not have to face the gender-based challenges of the past. We have seen our leaders and colleagues make real efforts to change their knowledge and understanding. Both of us have benefitted from confident female professionals teaching and guiding us directly – and demonstrating the kind of leadership required to build the culture and the workplace that is desired.

More soldiers are expected to be deployed today to help firefighters battle the nearly 400 active wildfires in British Columbia. Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma says 75 military members are heading to Burns Lake, in central B.C., to join 75 others who were sent to nearby Vanderhoof yesterday as part of federal assistance in the province’s wildfire fight. Ma says forecasters are expecting an increase in fire activity, as shifting winds lead to clearer skies, higher temperatures, and lower humidity. …BC Wildfire Service officials say the season has not yet hit its peak and they are warning that the drought that has helped fuel the flames this season could roll into next year, potentially causing the 2024 fire season to start early. A provincial drought bulletin shows 18 of the province’s 34 water basins are at drought Level 4, meaning harm to ecosystems and communities is likely, while four more are at the highest Level 5.