Each ESRI Scholarship applicant should provide no more than three or four pages, two pages of text and one or two pages of graphics (maps, tables, gures, models, diagrams), outlining why they should receive the award. The text pages should describe the applicants’ background in one paragraph and then detail their use of GIS, including when it was done and for whom. The graphics page(s) should include an exported image of the graphics that they have produced that illustrates the outcome of their analysis. Applications will be reviewed according to the clarity of the presentation, the level of GIS innovation, and the quality of the graphic presentation.
Ontario’s forest sector is facing a significant labour shortage. Across the province, it is recognized that engaging students and promoting employment and career opportunities is critical to the long-term viability of sector – from forest management planning to forest operations, from research and innovation to manufacturing. On February 16, 2023 students in forestry and forestry-related programs will join employers at Forests Ontario’s annual Student-Employer Engagement (SEED) Session. SEED brings together students, recent graduates, and representatives from organizations and companies within the forest sector in a virtual environment to discuss employment opportunities and in demand skills.
Building on a commitment to cultivate a highly-trained workforce that will drive the innovative solutions of tomorrow, Trimble and the Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship at the University of British Columbia (UBC) are collaborating to establish a state-of-the-art Trimble Technology Lab at UBC’s Forest Sciences Centre.
BC’s forests were once extensively managed for long-term sustainability and subsistence
Growing up in Greater Vancouver, Jennifer Grenz (BSc Agro-Ecology’04, PhD’20), who is of mixed Nlaka‘pamux ancestry from the Lytton First Nation, often relished in family trips to BC’s Southern Interior, Squamish-Lillooet and Coast Mountain regions. There, she would run through the semi-arid hills and valleys with her cousins, trapsing through stands of silver fir, white spruce, western larch, paper birch, trembling aspen and Rocky Mountain juniper.
Her deep roots in BC and passion for nature later led Jennifer down various paths. Following her undergraduate degree at UBC in agroecology, she launched an ecological restoration consulting company (Greener This Side), completed a PhD in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems at UBC and ran as the North Island-Powell River Liberal candidate.
In January 2022, Jennifer accepted a joint appointment with UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship and UBC Land and Food Systems as an Asst. Prof. where her research and teaching pursuits will build on her experience in invasive species management, ecological restoration, science communication and Indigenous ecology. What drives her work, she says, is a desire to better understand and apply an Indigenous worldview to the management of landscapes.
“I work a lot within Indigenous forest gardens,” she explains. “When you look at the species compositions in some areas in a legacy state that reflects Indigenous forest management practices, you find that they don’t look the same as a typical forest.”
…humans are an essential part of the relationships that allow plants, trees and forest ecosystems to thrive…
Prior to colonization, Indigenous peoples managed their lands extensively, placing certain plant species at various intensities in different locations to provide food and medicines on a broad scale, Jennifer explains. Forest soil was fertilized with fish bones, similar to how gardeners use fish emulsion to fertilize their backyard plants. Fire was used to conduct quick burns to open up the forest canopy, sweeten the soil (improve fertility) and remove dry woody debris that could ignite into a major blaze.
Many of these practices are being reclaimed and adapted in the modern context by Indigenous communities, says Jennifer, yet few are currently integrated into non-Indigenous-led, large- and small-scale forestry operations, despite their potential to improve climate resiliency.
Indigenous forest gardening was developed and passed down over millennia, which accounts for the sophistication and ingenuity of forest garden practices.
My question to address this predicament is: ‘how do we reclaim the practices in our Indigenous oral histories and then revitalize them in the modern context?
“The soil profile in Indigenous managed forest gardens can be entirely different than neighbouring areas,” says Jennifer.
“I have seen time and again throughout my career situations similar to the one in which salmonberry thrived in nearby Indigenous gardens, but, when a stand newly eradicated of invasive Japanese knotweed was planted with salmonberry, the plants died,” notes Jennifer. “The soils in non-Indigenous gardens are so different that the same result is not yielded.”
Jennifer has set her sights firmly on transferring knowledge of Indigenous ecology, food systems, forest gardens and invasive species management in collaboration with Indigenous communities and governments, as well as research into the soil microbiome and plant-soil interactions. This work, she asserts, can contribute to the much-needed paradigm shift towards relational, sustainable forest decision-making that honours place-based knowledge, community needs and values. These concepts will also be featured in her forthcoming book, Medicine wheel for the planet: Healing the land by reclaiming an Indigenous ecology, due to be released by Knopf Penguin Random House in 2024.
“We are dealing with many complex issues from the legacy of invasive plants on the land and a lack of understanding of and relationship with the land and how to steward and tend to plants,” says Jennifer.
While quick burns may work in remote rural areas, they may not be possible near towns and cities. This, Jennifer says, raises the question of what can be done instead. The answer is something she plans to pursue over the coming years.
“Today, we are in need of a reapplication of the food systems lens that guided the land management practices of Indigenous peoples who engineered forest species composition to serve our needs, as well as preserve the long-term health of the forest,” says Jennifer. “This involves a recognition that humans are an essential part of the relationships that allow plants, trees and forest ecosystems to thrive, and need to play a role in the purposeful shaping of lands and waters.”
Indigenous ecology, she says, has this concept baked into its core.
Global forestry assets could be poised for rapid growth
UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship alumnus, David Brand (PhD Forestry’85), knows the value of forests well. After serving as the director general of science and sustainable development with the Government of Canada’s Department of Natural Resources, David held roles with Australia’s largest forestry business. He also worked with a farmland and timberland investment organization before founding the global nature-based investment company, New Forests, in 2005.
David started New Forests with a $1 million loan, and has grown the business to a leading investment manager of approximately 1.25 million hectares of forest, valued at around $8.75 billion. A strong believer in the principles of sustainable forest management, David’s vision for his company includes creating opportunities within the forestry sector for communities to transition to a greener and more sustainable future.
“Community involvement and partnership are part of the transition to sustainable land use and natural climate solutions,” David says. “Community members need to be part of a shared value solution to generate returns and ensure success.”
“As a certified B Corp – working in the best interests of communities, employees, consumers and the environment – New Forests also supports the climate change mitigation opportunities forests can provide. Circular bioeconomy technology, such as wood-based bioproducts, along with the carbon sequestration potential of trees, are part of New Forests’ investments in real assets, as well as natural capital strategies.
“Forestry has become a key player in the sustainability transition,” says David. “It’s like all roads lead to Rome. Forestry investment can help in both mitigation and adaptation to climate change, as well as support nature conservation and create benefits to rural communities, including Indigenous communities.”
Forestry’s return on investment comes from the sale of timber and other forest-related goods and services, along with biological growth. Similar to wine, the more forests age, or in this case grow, the more valuable they can become.
A relatively new opportunity, forestry investing started to gain appeal around the 1980s and 1990s, largely in the form of assets sold to institutional investors in the US, says David. It has since piqued the interest of investors looking for ways to balance their portfolios with longer-term options.
“Forestry has no inherent correlation with the stock market or bond rates,” explains David, making it an attractive investment opportunity, particularly when weathering volatile market conditions.
What we’re trying to accomplish is looking at how the forestry sector can be recast as a solutions-based sector that leads in the transition to a sustainable society.” the carbon sequestration potential of trees, are part of New Forests’ investments in real assets, as well as natural capital strategies.
“The longer time horizon of forest assets does come with a degree of risk from externalities such as climate change, wildfire and other natural disasters, although many can be mitigated through management practices and insurance,” David shares.
Because real assets tend to be scarce or finite, demand for them increases with population growth. For example, real estate is a real asset that grows in value in a tight market with few available homes and lots of people looking to buy. Trees are a finite resource in that there is limited arable land upon which to grow them. With global populations estimated to reach 10.9 billion people by the year 2100, demand for trees and the services they provide could be on an upwards trajectory.
“As human populations and the global economy continue to grow, sustainability is likely to be an ongoing, central trend in investing,” says David. “Everything people do that creates a more sustainable outcome is going to become more valuable.”
