On Day 2 at the Council of Forest Industries’ conference in Vancouver, Executive Advisor, Climate Investing and Community Resilience of Co-operators, Don Iveson, provided the opening keynote on “Forestry’s Role in Climate Resilient Housing and Communities”. The session was moderated by Zara Rabinovitch, Director of Sustainability of COFI.

Don Iveson

Zara Rabinovitch

Iveson underscored the impacts of climate change as municipalities are faced with rising costs for infrastructure investment programs, with adaptation required in response to severe weather patterns. Iveson and his team set out four goals to combat this crisis: make it low-carbon, make it resilient, make it affordable, and make it at scale. He argued that changes are required such as housing density and implementing better building codes, and highlighted that Canada has a “productivity challenge”, where mechanization and factory-built housing could offer solutions. Adaptation is essential to improve the resilience of our communities, and private investment is interested in climate-minded adaption. To get ahead of climate risk, Iveson posited that this starts with forestry, and maintaining healthy forests. With the growing impact of wildfires, resilience also calls for better fuel management, with active forest landscape management. In the Q&A, Rabinovitch and Iveson discussed bridging the divide of the different business models and political environments that would support resilient housing and communities. Looking to the demands for affordable housing and faster construction, there are substantial opportunities for the role of low-carbon building materials that are produced locally, and the expanding possibilities for wood and mass timber to meet those demands.

David Coletto and David Elstone

The second keynote David Coletto, Chair and CEO of Abacus Data led the conversation “From Crisis to Consensus: How Wildfires are Changing the Public Conversation on Forestry in BC”. This session was moderated by David Elstone, Managing Director, Spar Tree Group. Public perception matters in daily decision making. Coletto pointed out that policy change requires three streams; the public needs to recognize a problem exists, the public has to believe there are viable solutions, and the public needs to be willing to act to cause change. One of the top issues facing BC today is the impact of climate change, with the majority of people believing that the impacts will become worse. 75% of people in BC follow wildfires closely and believe it will have a large impact on their lives. There’s broad, cross-partisan support for government action to actively manage forests to prevent and mitigate wildfires. 73% of British Columbians believe that forestry has a positive impact overall, and 89% see that a strong forestry sector is vital to BCs economy. When it comes to the role of forestry in mitigating wildfires, steps can be taken through tending to our forests, and removing fuel from the forest floor. Public and private groups must work together and involve local stakeholders to find solutions towards effective mitigation. In the Q&A, Coletto and Elstone discussed the importance of how the forest sector can tell its story, and raise awareness about what is needed to reduce wildfires and build on the steps taken with strategic partners towards problem solving.