Mosaic Forest Management and the Arrowsmith Cycling Club (ACC) have reached a formal agreement that sanctions access to the Hammerfest Trail Network in Errington. The agreement gives ACC formal access to manage, maintain and recreate in the Hammerfest Trail Network, while providing Mosaic with assurance of a high level of conduct among users and a focus on safety, according to a news release by Mosaic. “The agreement with Mosaic Forest Management celebrates the potential of the Hammerfest Trail Network as a showcase for this region,” said Jake Friesen, ACC president. “We’re thrilled that these sanctioned trails will become a part of Vancouver Island’s world-renowned class of single-track mountain bike trails.” ACC will be responsible for stewardship of the trails to ensure compliance with industry standards for trail building.

Rob Logan is a tree cruiser, and like all of the people in Silvicola, a new documentary about B.C.’s forest industry as seen by the people it employs, his story isn’t simple. Silvicola won the John Kastner Award at Hot Docs 2023 and the Best Canadian Feature Film at Planet in Focus 2023. It plays Feb 4 at the Victoria Film Festival, and Feb 28 at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival as well as online viewing. For director and producer Jean-Philippe Marquis, the film’s complex reflections are the point. “The main goal of the film is to touch into the internal dilemma,” he said. “‘I love the forest, but I destroy it.’” …I made the choice to only feature people who work in the forest — I didn’t want a bad-guy, good-guy dichotomy. I wanted criticize some aspects of the industry, but always with respect for the workers, knowing that they love the forest, and have a deep understanding of it.

With parts of Alberta gripped by severe drought, fire chiefs across the province are asking the government to share its strategy for fighting wildfires this year. The Alberta Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA) published an open letter (opens in a new tab)to the Alberta government Wednesday, expressing “significant concern” over the upcoming wildfire season. AFCA president Randy Schroeder said fire chiefs have been meeting with government officials, but no plans for this year’s wildfire response have been shared yet. “They’re acknowledging that if things don’t change in 2024, it’s going to be a problem for this province,” said AFCA president Randy Schroeder. “And we don’t have a plan in place that says, ‘This is what the province is doing to prepare for response for the upcoming wildfire season.'”

Juvenile salmon in British Columbia are growing larger than they did 100 years ago due to climate change, according to a new Simon Fraser University-led study. Century-old fish scales are yielding new insights into how salmon populations are responding to climate change in northern B.C., and how maintaining the integrity of freshwater habitats may help salmon adapt to warming temperatures. SFU biological sciences Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellow Michael Price, with other SFU researchers and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, have used modern genetic tools to analyze fish scales collected from fisheries since 1913 to reconstruct the historical growth of juvenile sockeye in various lakes across the Skeena watershed. Their paper, published in Global Change Biology, finds that the annual freshwater growth of juvenile salmon is substantially higher in recent years than it was a century ago, by about 35%. 

Workers in British Columbia’s silviculture sector, including forestry workers, tree planters and staff at nurseries, will benefit from new training to better prepare them to prevent and mitigate wildfires. …In partnership with the Western Forestry Contractors’ Association, a two-year pilot project will ensure workers around the province are trained to understand risks, mitigations and have the skills required for best fire safety practices in B.C.’s forests. …New training in fire prevention, climate change awareness and hands-on training with forestry tools will be provided through $900,000 from the 2022-23 Canada-British Columbia Workforce Development Agreement. …“The silviculture labour-force strategy will ensure that B.C.’s silviculture sector continues to grow and diversify its workforce, while learning new skills necessary to restore our forests and mitigate the effects of climate change on our landscapes,” said John Betts, executive director, Western Forestry Contractors’ Association.

Masters in Sustainable Forest Management students from the University of British Columbia (UBC) toured forestry management areas between the Okanagan and Kootenays as part of their final course marks, as well as to meet people living and working in the areas. The group paid a visit to Christina Lake on Jan. 24 to meet members of the public and take in a presentation and project assignment from Dan Macmaster, forestry manager with the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) and a graduate of the UBC program. This excursion is part of an intense capstone course for the students, said Ken Byrne, lecturer and coordinator with the MSFM Program. Students have been visiting active forestry projects, mills and meeting with residents to get real-world data for their projects, as well as a sense of what their careers and lives will be like once they are professional foresters.

KAMLOOPS — Mike Anderson says slash burning has been the way to clean up a cut block after harvest. “I’ve been working for Skeetchestn for about 27 years now,” Anderson recalls. “What we’ve seen for the last 10, 15, 20 years is a lot of ‘waste wood’ go up in smoke.” As an advisor and negotiator for Skeetchestn Natural Resource Corporation, Anderson saw that a significant amount of usable fibre wasn’t being used, so suggested a way for some industry partners to salvage that fibre. “We kind of pushed on Kruger and Arrow to figure out what they can do with these waste piles,” Anderson says. Kruger generates power at its Kamloops pulp mill operation by burning biomass, in the form of hog fuel. …For Anderson, collaborations like this represent economic reconciliation with First Nations communities in the region, who can get a say on how the resources taken off their lands are harvested.

Additional coverage from Forest Enhancement Society of BC: A local Interior First Nation takes the lead to add value to low-value wood fibre

A new report from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society British Columbia found the province’s Old Growth Management Areas “do not meet conservation standards and contain little old growth.” The report found that the actual composition of these areas, called OGMAs, are mostly (58 per cent) young forest, with old forests (roughly 141 to 250 years), making up just under one third of the total area protected by Old Growth Management Areas. The remaining 13 per cent is either not forested or does not have sufficient data. …CPAWS recommends that the province amend the OGMA guidelines to ensure old growth is protected … and reform laws to ensure boundary changes and industrial activity cannot take place in the protected areas. …The Ministry of Forests responded to the report, saying that “it is correct that many Old Growth Management Areas contain more mature forests than old growth. However, mature forests were included to capture larger, more contiguous areas.”