Forestry research gets $8.3M boost in BC

Victoria, BC – British Columbia is supporting forestry research projects with a total of $8.3 million in funding. This year, 21 different organizations universities and research institutes, natural resource consultants, forest companies, and the provincial and federal governments will use the funds to conduct 127 forest research projects acrosss the province. Among others, the projects include:

– Mountain pine beetle research, led by the Bulkley Valley Centre for Natural Resources Research and Management, to study how forests grow and develop following a beetle infestation.

– Wildfire research, conducted by UBC Okanagan, to look at methods to control erosion and rehabilitate sites affected by wildfire.

– Fish and wildlife habitat studies to better understand the needs of different species, including the woodland caribou and mountain goat (research conducted by Wildlife Infometrics), the juvenile northern goshawk (conducted by Thompson Rivers University), and the marbled murrelet (conducted by Simon Fraser University and University of Victoria).

Funds are being provided through the Forest Science Program of the Forest Investment Account (FIA), which has provided about $48 million in research funding since 2002. FIA’s Forest Science Program is also providing $1.25 million to the Forest Research Extension Partnership (FORREX) to ensure the results of the work are made available to natural resource managers, including professional foresters and biologists.

"Research extension is a series of actions that keeps BC’s practising foresters and biologists aware of the most current knowledge related to sustainable forest management," says Dr Bill Bourgeois, chair of the Forest Science Program’s advisory board. "It’s also a process that bridges knowledge and information gaps by linking people with problems to people who can help work on solutions."