New forest management planning tools discussed at workshop
Feature Story posted on August 12, 2008
Forestry professionals from across Canada attended a June 27 workshop to learn about new planning tools for forest management. Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) sponsored the workshop to share information gained from applied research institutes in Eastern Canada.
Titled Tools to Implement Sustainable Forest Management: Lessons from the East, the workshop was held in Edmonton and aligned with the annual general meeting of the College of Alberta Professional Foresters.
Co-sponsored by the Sustainable Forest Management Network and the College of Alberta Professional Foresters, the workshop was designed to promote an understanding of planning tools developed from new partnerships SRD has cultivated with Alberta-based partners and academic institutions across Canada.
“SRD is a national leader in promoting and developing linkages between Alberta-based partners and academic institutions across Canada,” explains SRD’s Barry White, an organizer of the workshop.
“Developing strong research ties with other organizations and research institutions on a national scale makes strong fiscal sense for two reasons,” he continues. “While Alberta has strong innovative capacity within the area of forestry, tremendous capacity also resides across Canada and beyond. We need to be able to quickly capture and harness this innovative capacity for use within Alberta.
“Secondly, many of the challenges to forest and land use management in Alberta are not unique to Alberta, but rather are often faced by our forestry partners from many other regions. Solutions to these challenges are sometimes available for use here.”
As an example, White notes that Alberta-based partners – including SRD – recently developed new partnerships with researchers at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in order to develop management tools and approaches for wet areas mapping and biodiversity. Alberta’s partners in these new research endeavours included Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc., Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd., Miller Western Forest Products Ltd. and Ducks Unlimited. Significant funding support came from the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta and the Sustainable Forest Management Network.
The event attracted 115 forestry professionals.
At the workshop, several speakers highlighted research findings into wet areas mapping developed by UNB researchers and how this new planning approach could help address issues related to sustainability of aquatic resources and forest industry competitiveness. This initiative recently moved from the research phase to full implementation in several areas of the province and is a key strategy to help SRD meet its obligations under the Water for Life Strategy.
Workshop speakers included Dr. David McLean, Dean of the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Forestry at UNB; Dr. Thom Erdle, nationally respected authority on forest management challenges; and many of the graduate students who undertook much of the work.
The workshop was preceded by a two-day field workshop based at Hinton Training Centre that introduced students to the complexities of forest and water management and challenges related to caribou and mountain pine beetle. The highlight for many students was a thought-provoking presentation by Gord Stenhouse pertaining to the grizzly bear research program.
Sponsored and organized by SRD and co-sponsored by the Foothills Research Institute, the field tour was developed to introduce graduate students to land management challenges and the Alberta environment that collectively make this province a career destination. The event also served to promote networking among industry, academia, students and key SRD staff.
Participants included staff from Forest Management Branch’s Forest Planning section and graduate students from the University of New Brunswick, Dalhousie University in Halifax, the University of Toronto, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Alberta.
