David Coletto & David Elstone

A public opinion expert sees both opportunity and new challenges as British Columbians become more aware of forest management and wildfires. Abacus Data CEO David Coletto… said while public perception of the forestry industry previously hinged on its relevance and proximity to a given community, after a record season of wildfires and previous natural disasters, all of the province understands the sector’s significance. …“What we learned from research was that the crisis around the wildfires has created a moment where, regardless of your political stripe, where you live in B.C., you know this is a problem. You think it’s going to get worse and you know that forestry is actually part of the solution,” Coletto said. He added the awareness of the industry is an opportunity for forestry to bring new audiences into a conversation. …“Some of that work, the active forest management, can be part of the solution,” Coletto said.

Premier Scott Moe and Public Safety Minister Paul Merriman unveiled details on four re-purposed land-based airtanker aircraft, consisting of two Dash 8-Q400AT models and two Dash 8-Q400MRE models, being purchased for an approximate cost of $187.06 million. The planes will replace the current fleet, which consists of four Convair 580 airplanes. Those planes will approach the end of their useful lifespan in 2027. “Saskatchewan relies on land-based airtankers as part of its approach to managing wildfires,” Minister Merriman said. “These aircraft are used in instances where waterbombers may not be able to access lakes to fill up their tanks.” The Dash 8-Q400AT planes are dedicated air tankers, while the Dash 8-Q400MRE models can be fitted as an airtanker and reconfigured to provide multiple roles for air operations (e.g., air evacuations, patient transport, cargo hauling, etc.). Both models have increased capacity and efficiency, and produce 30 per cent less emissions than a similar sized airtanker.

Provincial figures peg the total cost of planting 50 million trees this year at $75 million with the province’s share being $55.5 million. The rest of the money is coming from an agreement with Natural Resources Canada. B.C.’s forests ministry released that figure last week as part of marking the planting of the 10-billionth tree since the start of the reforestation program in 1930. The ministry said two billion of those were planted in the past seven years. Last year, 305 million seedlings were planted in B.C. forests. April marks the start of the tree-planting season, usually running through August. This year’s season is starting against the backdrop of what may turn out to be a worse fire season than last year’s, which caused significant damage to provincial forests. Provincial figures estimate fires burnt 2.84 million hectares, more than double the area of forest and land fire had burnt during any previous year on record.

MISSION, BC—Mission Municipal Forest has recently achieved third-party forest certification under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), SFI Indigenous Peoples and Families Module. ‘We are extremely pleased to be certified under the SFI system – this gives both our citizens and timber buyers confidence that we are managing the Mission Municipal Forest in a sustainable fashion. The City of Mission is committed to continually improving how we manage forests around the community, and we are working on implementing a number of new, progressive initiatives over the next few years with this in mind,” said Chris Gruenwald, Director of Forestry. …The SFI Indigenous Peoples and Families Module was created for small-scale forest licences, managed by Indigenous Peoples, Communities, and Families. Management under this standard is based on 13 principles.