Nanaimo, BC — Mosaic Forest Management is pleased to announce a $20,000 donation from sales of firewood cutting permits to BGC Central Vancouver Island. BGC is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing safe, supportive places where children and youth can experience new opportunities, overcome barriers, and develop confidence and skills for life. The support that BGC on Vancouver Island provides has been more important than ever during the past year. Mosaic’s donation will allow BGC to continue to ensure every Club member has access to healthy food and the skills and mentorship young people need to be successful in school, work, and life. …Mosaic’s annual firewood donation matches funds collected through the sale of firewood cutting permits. Firewood permits give local communities access to affordable firewood for personal use, like heating a home. … the proceeds going to a deserving organization benefitting local communities.

Paul Beltgens

The ability to adapt to ever-changing market conditions and sometimes unforeseen factors is a necessity for any forestry operation. The Paulcan and Jemico Enterprises Ltd. family operation, located in Chemainus, was first started as a small planer mill in 1985 but has stood the test of time and remains on the cutting edge of the business. It’s due in large part to industrious hands-on owner Paul Beltgens, who commands a great deal of respect in the industry for his innovation and vision. “The forest industry is very unique,” said Beltgens, 65, whose son Mike also has a stake in the ownership. “It’s ever-evolving. If you’re not apt to change you won’t be here.” …Today, the modern Jemico sawmill is one of the largest producers of hardwood lumber from alder and maple not only in B.C., but all of Canada. Alder and maple are well-known globally as the best raw materials for furniture manufacturing.

With several tree protection efforts in the Islands Trust Area on the docket, the Trust is aiming to develop a streamlined strategy for the complex issue. In March, Trust Council unanimously voted to update the current strategic plan to expand the scope of “forestry initiatives,” which will include exploring establishment of development permit areas, tree cutting authority advocacy, enforcement of development permits related to forestry and advocacy associated with the Private Managed Forest Land Act. …Peter Luckham, Trust Council chair met with Katrine Conroy, minister of Forests, recently to continue a multi-year conversation between the Trust and the ministry to amend the Private Managed Forest Land Act, which the Trust says restricts its ability to fulfill its preserve and protect mandate as well as compromises its Reconciliation Action Plan and efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Luckham remains optimistic about the outcomes.

Al Gorley and Garry Merkel

“Old forests, especially those with very large trees, are the product of ancient ecosystems, icons of British Columbia’s landscape, and a key aspect of the province’s unique identity. In addition to their intrinsic value, the timber they provide is important to the provincial economy, and a primary source of income in many communities. … The conditions that exist in many of these forests and ecosystems are also simply non-renewable in any reasonable time frame.” So wrote Al Gorley, RPF and Garry Merkel, RPF, in a strategic review of British Columbia’s management of old growth forests … That report, complete with recommendations, was submitted to the provincial government in April 2020. Since then, says Eddie Petryshen, Conservation Specialist for the East Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight, there has been lots of talk and little action on actually protecting the forests.

Hugues Massicotte

UNBC is recognizing three retired professors at its virtual convocation June 25. Henry Harder, Ross Hoffman and Hugues Massicotte are being granted the title “professor emeritus.” …Hugues Massicotte was a founding member of the forestry faculty, starting in 1994. He has been an integral part of the Ecosystem Science and Management program over the last 26 years. …at UNBC, he ran a successful research program on how forest disturbance can impact soil microbial processes, the ecology of forest soils, and plant growth. …He is well known for leading student and community groups on enthusiastic mushroom and botanical explorations. During his career, he assisted with securing research grants totaling more than $2.5 million. Massicotte received University Excellence Awards in both research and teaching, and was the recipient of the Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also been recognized for lifetime service by the Canadian Botanical Association.

The BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) will be undertaking a prescribed fire this May, with Burns Lake Community Forest (BL ComFor) as part of their wildfire mitigation activity. Starting as early as May 5, BCWS and BL ComFor will be undertaking a planned burn … for four identified fire units totalling 675 hectares. … “Applying prescribed fire to these areas will remove residual slash left over after harvesting and reduce fuel load that, in the event of a wildfire, could lead to more intense fire behaviour and added difficulty and danger to suppression efforts.” [Any] fuels that were able to be utilized by the pellet plant have already been transported off location. Some of the benefits of having a prescribed burn like this include improving access … for replanting, improving ecological health, as well as allowing land managers to practice good stewardship…

A more competitive and diverse forest sector is expected to result from the updated Forests Act that went into effect on May 1. Bill 40 is the first major revision to the Forests Act in 50 years and aims to cut red tape, provide greater flexibility in harvesting operations, and maintain existing forest management practices. This flexibility will allow forest companies to quickly respond to major events that would heavily impact their harvest, explains Brock Mulligan, vice-president of communications and government affairs for the Alberta Forest Product Association. “We have events, like fire and pest infestations, that really throw a kick into plans that mean companies either need to harvest an area more quickly because pests are moving in, or have to divert harvest from an area because something like a fire has altered those plans. Having that flexibility built into the act is really important and helps support jobs in our industry.”

Dave Salayka

Dave Salayka has been a professional forester and tree faller for most of his working life. …But the rare inland temperate rainforest in British Columbia’s Raush Valley — home to 1,000-year-old cedar trees, moose and grizzly bears — is one place Salayka doesn’t want to see logged. Salayka is joining forces with local ranchers, business owners and conservationists to try to save the old-growth Raush Valley, 250 kilometres southeast of Prince George. “It’s such a waste to take trees that are hundreds and thousands of years old and turn them into lumber.” …Logging rights to the Raush are held by Carrier Forest Products… Carrier president Bill Kordyban says the company is happy to talk to local residents and come up with a plan that works for everybody.  “On the other hand, I have a sawmill that needs wood and when we bought the timber licence the Raush was part of the timber supply base”.

Despite the B.C. government’s stated commitment to protect old forests, old-growthlogging approvals in British Columbia jumped 43 per cent in the last year, a new study based on provincial government data shows. …Torrance Coste, for the Wilderness Committee, says the increase in cutblock approvals is the result of a “fire sale” on old-growth forests announced by the B.C. government. …“We do not believe the conclusions drawn from the Wilderness Committee’s analysis accurately reflect what is happening in B.C.’s ancient forests,” the office of Katrine Conroy, B.C. minister of forests said. “The fact is, 10 million hectares of old growth is already protected and since coming into office our government has protected hundreds of thousands more. We are committed to work with the committee to better understand their results and to provide a true account of our old-growth forest.” …Coste says… the government needs to defer logging in old-growth forests.

The Nazko First Nation’s community is located west of Quesnel, BC. Nazko is surrounded by vast forests. …However, the forests in Nazko’s traditional territory were hit hard by the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the early 2000s. Wildfires are also a regular occurrence in Nazko territory. …after surviving a close call during the 2017 wildfires, the community decided that something needed to be done to make the community safer. In 2014, Nazko formed a joint venture (JV) partnership with Pacific BioEnergy (PacBio) called Nazbec. Nazbec developed a wood chipping operation on Tolko’s sawmill site in Quesnel. The operation ran steadily between 2015 and 2017 providing wood chips to pulp mills in Quesnel utilizing the dead pine not suitable for sawlogs. …So, when Nazko decided that it wanted to better protect the community from wildfire, they applied for funding to the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FES). The PacBio Woodlands team joined up … to develop a plan.

The County of Wetaskiwin is selling Verbenone pouches through the County’s Agricultural Service Board with a distribution date of June 14 for County residents and June 16 for non-residents. In the summer of 2018 the first Mountain Pine Beetle infestation was discovered in the County of Wetaskiwin. County staff began scouting for the beetle in 2019 and confirmed 40 sites of infestation. In 2020, there were five additional sites identified, although, the attacks appeared to be from a previous year. Forestry Officer for Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, Mike Undershultz, reported that there were very low reproduction numbers in the 2019/20 winter and therefore a small flight of beetles in 2020. Alberta Ag and Forestry recommends that pine trees with over 40 pitch tubes be removed by chipping, peeling, or burning on site. Verbenone is a synthetic anti-aggregation pheromone that gives the beetles a “no vacancy” message so that they continue on their flight.

Over the last decade, the City of Vancouver has focused on growing the urban forest to combat tree loss and foster climate resiliency. But if that’s going to happen, the key will be promoting more trees on private land. It’s an urgent priority for the city. …Vancouver’s Urban Forest Strategy, launched in 2014, has mostly focused on what it can control — protecting existing trees from being cut down and planting new trees wherever it can — and it has seen some good success, hitting its original goal of planting 150,000 trees by 2020. But that’s largely happened on public land. Meanwhile, according to the city, growth has been declining on private land, where a third of the urban forest still remains. The Vancouver Park Board set an admirable new goal: to increase the canopy cover from 23 per cent to 30 per cent by 2050. But can that happen?