Congratulations to Yale (Yeling) Zhu, a UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship alumnus, on being named to Pulp & Paper Canada’s Top 10 Under 40, recognizing emerging leaders making an impact in Canada’s pulp and paper industry. Zhu is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of DicinFoam, a bio-based materials company developing innovative applications for forestry by-products. His work includes an Indigenous-led partnership with Wet’suwet’en First Nation to advance UBC-developed wood foam technology toward commercial production. Zhu completed his postdoctoral research under the supervision of Dr. Feng Jiang, who nominated him for the Top 10 Under 40 recognition.
Congratulations to UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship faculty member Dr. Isla Myers-Smith, who has received a Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF) award to advance her innovative research program, Capturing High-Latitude Landscape Responses to Climate Change.
About Isla
Dr. Isla Myers-Smith is a professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences and the Canada Research Chair in Global Change Ecology of Northern Ecosystems. She studies how climate change is transforming Arctic tundra ecosystems, with a focus on changes in vegetation, biodiversity and plant growth across the Canadian North. Her research combines fieldwork with tools such as drones, time-lapse cameras and satellite data, while collaborating with local communities and researchers to better understand environmental change at local and global scales.
About CFI JELF Awards
The John R. Evans Leaders Fund, administered by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, supports universities in attracting and retaining top researchers by funding state-of-the-art laboratories, equipment, and facilities. These investments strengthen Canada’s research ecosystem and enable groundbreaking discoveries that benefit society.
Reg Olden and Dr. Yeling Zhu remove a freshly pressed block of wood foam at DicinFoam’s Vancouver pilot plant. Photo: Clare Kiernan/UBC.
A landmark partnership between the Wet’suwet’en Nation and UBC is pioneering a made-in-B.C. solution to the global plastic crisis, turning local forestry waste into biodegradable foam packaging.
Inside a new facility at Main Street and Terminal Avenue, wood fibre is moving through a production line and emerging, transformed, as a block of lightweight “wood foam.”
For Dr. Feng Jiang, who first developed the material in his laboratory at the Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship at UBC, the moment is years in the making.
For Reg Ogen, president and CEO of Yinka Dene Economic Development Limited Partnership (YLP) and a leader of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, it signals a shift in the Canadian bioeconomy: a new economic relationship between Indigenous communities and the forests they have stewarded for generations.
Millions of tonnes of plastic foam packaging end up in landfills each year, where they can persist for more than 500 years. This new facility aims to change that. By transforming wood waste resulting from logging or forest fires—material that might otherwise be burned or discarded—into biodegradable packaging and insulation, the partnership is turning a costly liability for the forestry sector into a high-value, sustainable product.
Indigenous-led commercialization
The pilot plant is operated by DicinFoam, a majority-owned subsidiary of YLP, the business arm of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. Dicin (pronounced DIH-chun), the Wet’suwet’en word for wood, reflects the company’s connection to both the forest and Wet’suwet’en culture. The underlying intellectual property is co-owned by UBC and YLP.
“This partnership is a blueprint for the future of the forestry industry,” said Reg Ogen. “Today’s forestry industrialization models have extracted value from all forest dwellers, communities, and our Indigenous cultures. Our project will maximize utilization to add value and respect to each harvested tree and land. Our wood-based biodegradable foam products will help protect Mother Earth for future generations.”
From lab to pilot-scale production
The plant converts softwoods such as spruce, pine and fir into a lightweight wood foam using heat, mechanical processing and minimal chemical additives. In packaging applications, the material is designed to break down in soil within months. The facility also produces insulation panels treated to meet building performance requirements, a market that currently relies heavily on imported wood-based products.
The technology originated in the lab of Dr. Jiang, a professor in UBC’s faculty of forestry and environmental stewardship whose research focuses on turning underused forest biomass into high-value bio-based materials. His lab continues to support DicinFoam’s scale-up, testing new feedstock combinations and expanding the range of applications as the company grows.
Dr. Feng Jiang and UBC students monitor the production line at DicinFoam’s Vancouver pilot plant. Photo: Clare Kiernan/UBC.
“With this pilot we’re creating opportunities to train the next generation of talent, including Indigenous students, in sustainable materials development and business,” said Dr. Jiang. “This will help to build a stronger and more inclusive Canadian bioeconomy.”
The bridge between lab and plant is Dr. Yeling Zhu, DicinFoam’s chief technology officer. Dr. Zhu completed his postdoctoral research in Dr. Jiang’s lab before joining another company, but when the opportunity came to return and lead the scale-up, he took it.
“As an inventor, it is rewarding to see green technologies move from the lab into pilot-scale production,” said Dr. Zhu. “Now we can prove performance, validate the process and begin building the market for a made-in-B.C. material.”
Expanding opportunities in rural communities
The plant currently produces 150 to 200 kilograms of wood foam per day, allowing potential customers to test the material and evaluate its performance. The company shares the site with Plantee, a manufacturer of wood-based construction materials, whose industrial expertise is helping inform the scale-up.
The next phase targets an annual capacity of 1,000 tonnes of biodegradable foam per year at a larger facility in Burns Lake, located within Wet’suwet’en territory. This expansion will anchor a forest-based innovation hub and is expected to create up to 15 jobs in a rural community, plus an additional 35 to 60 after a planned move into a larger, 15,000-tonne facility on Vancouver Island.
Two members of Huu-ay-aht First Nation on Vancouver Island — William Dennis and Shaun Dennis — are currently training at the Vancouver plant to support future operations close to home.
William Dennis and Dr. Yeling Zhu at DicinFoam’s Vancouver pilot plant. Photo credit: Lou Bosshart/UBC.
“This opportunity has been very meaningful to me. A company is working alongside our Indigenous band and invited me to be part of that journey. Since then, I’ve seen how partnerships like this can create real opportunities for Indigenous people and communities. One of the things I’m most proud of is working alongside my younger brother Shaun Dennis. I hope our involvement encourages greater Indigenous participation in clean technology and shows how collaboration can create lasting benefits for our communities and future generations,” said William Dennis.
The project received support from Innovation UBC and funding from Natural Resources Canada’s Indigenous Forestry Initiative and its Investments in Forestry Industry Transformation, the B.C. Ministry of Forests, the B.C. Ministry of Jobs and Economic Growth, Forestry Innovation Investment and Mitacs.
Interview language(s): English (Jiang, Zhu, Ogen), Mandarin (Jiang, Zhu)
Media contact: Charlotte Fisher Marketing & Media Relations Strategist Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship University of British Columbia charlotte.fisher@ubc.ca
Expanding long-term sustainable forest management in Chile
The researcher who inspired the socioeconomic dimensions of the country’s National Forest Inventory is working alongside Indigenous leaders to take sustainable forestry to the next level.
Dr. René A. Reyes Gallardo
As a Chilean, Dr. René A. Reyes Gallardo (PhD (Forestry)’17) grew up learning about the history, peoples and struggles of his homeland. Similar to the challenges facing many parts of the world, Chile is grappling with dwindling old-growth forests and hectares of native forest being converted into commercial plantations.
Vast swaths of Chile’s temperate rainforest are lost each year to timber, charcoal, fuel or agricultural production.
“Because we don’t have fossil fuels in Chile, firewood is the main source of fuel for heating and cooking,” explains René. “This is why one of Chile’s main challenges concerning forest degradation is the firewood market.”
Wanting to contribute to a more sustainable future for Chileans, René pursued studies in forest engineering and science, completing a PhD in Forestry at the Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship (FES) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2017. Since then, René has dedicated his career to finding sustainable solutions for managing Chile’s forests, including co-creating the National Firewood Certification System in 2004 to help regulate Chile’s firewood market while reducing both forest degradation and urban air pollution.
René’s latest project brings together Indigenous leaders, Chile’s national government and experts from around the world with the goal of expanding a collaborative approach to forest management and Indigenous Reconciliation in the country.
First image: René’s doctoral supervisor was Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship Professor, Dr. Harry Nelson, pictured here with René. Second image: Chile’s temperate rainforests are the second largest of this type in the world. Credit: Alvaro Rojas. Third image: Most of Chile’s protected forestlands are located in the Patagonia geographic region of South America, which covers some 800,000 square kilometers across Chile and Argentina. Credit: Patricio Barria.
A green island under threat
Extending some 4,300 kilometres in total length, Chile’s forestlands are mainly located in the cooler, rainier south-central region. A biogeographic island bordered by the Atacama Desert to the north, the Andean Cordillera to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the south, south-central Chile is also home to a large percentage of the country’s over 5,000 species of vascular plants, around 45% of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
Enriched by prehistoric volcanic activity, south-central Chile’s fertile soils have also made the it one of the top 10 regions in the world for converting forestlands to forestry plantations, with the total area planted with exotic tree species rising from approximately 300,000 hectares to over 3 million hectares from 1970 to 2016.
Small- and medium-scale landowners and farmers own much of the remaining native forest and have been clearing it for the production of commercial crops, such that agricultural expansion and firewood production are now the main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the country.
Taking place in the wake of prolific rainforest burning by European colonizers that spanned the 16th to 19th centuries, the cumulative effects of shifting land use patterns continue to ripple throughout local economies, ecosystems and communities. The aftermath of these events can also be found in ongoing land disputes. Exacerbated by climate change, wildfire, water scarcity and conflicts over forest resources, new approaches are needed to prevent further, and possibly irreversible, damage.
Precipitation across Chile is a story of extremes, with annual rainfall below 100 millimetres in parts of its northern reaches and above 3,000 millimetres in some areas of its south. Credit: Alvaro Rojas.
Building on the National Forest Inventory
One of René’s current research projects involves working alongside Indigenous Mapuche leaders to gather critical information on Chile’s temperate rainforests in the face of mounting environmental and human pressures. The Mapuche are Chile’s largest Indigenous ethnic group, descending from the first peoples to arrive on these lands some 12,000 years ago.
Their project aims to help build capacity for additional research and the identification of regional forest management solutions that balance ecological and economic values for the benefit of local communities.
“The concept for this project flows from my doctoral studies at FES,” says René, who is presently an associate researcher with the Energy Resources, Development and Environment Lab at FES and the Faculty of Forestry of the Universidad Austral de Chile, as well as a researcher with the Instituto Forestal of Chile. “Something that my research helped demonstrate was the need to collect information on the socioeconomic dimension of forestry in Chile in order to design more effective forest policies.”
Roughly 10 years ago, René’s thesis findings informed the Government of Chile’s decision to launch the first survey of socioeconomic characteristics of Chile’s forests and integrate it into the government’s National Forest Inventory. The ongoing socioeconomic survey, which René currently leads, is collecting foundational data on forest owners every five years, including their perceptions of risk, income and use of the forest, among others.
“While the biophysical dimensions of a forest inventory tell you about its current state, it doesn’t tell you why the forest is in that state,” says René. “By including socioeconomic dimensions in the National Forest Inventory, the government is collecting data on what local people are taking from the forest and how decisions are affecting the forest in terms of deforestation, forest degradation, sustainability and non-timber forest products.”
Socioeconomic data is being collected over a longer time horizon to capture changes based on economic ebbs and flows. While bullish markets bring relative prosperity and greater cash flow and spending power, leading potentially to less forest clearing for commercial crops, periods of economic decline tend to tighten purse strings, forcing people to look for alternative sources of income.
“For instance, during a growth period in the economic cycle, with a lower unemployment rate and a lot of money circulating in the economy, forest owners may be less likely to harvest their forests for commercial purposes, allowing the forest to regenerate,” explains René. “However, during a period of recession, some landowners may need to take timber from the forest, almost like someone would withdraw from a savings account, in order to survive.”
Chile’s expanded National Forest Inventory offers an invaluable tool for identifying socioeconomic patterns that drive forest degradation and deforestation. It also has the potential to illuminate specific contexts in which forest restoration is possible and to inform policies and practices for the future sustainable management of native forests.
Forest inventories are conducted and maintained by many countries around the world, including Canada.
Capacity-building for long-term sustainability
René’s work with local Mapuche leaders may help to strengthen Chile’s capacity to understand the complex web of factors influencing forestland usage. One of their goals is to build knowledge- and research-capacity within Chile’s government and community institutions, along with its well-established forestry education system. This additional expertise could enhance decision-making power for sustainable forest management that considers the livelihoods of members of the local population, including Indigenous community members.
“Over the long-term, we need to increase the number of individuals who can continue this work,” René states.
“We hope to develop something similar to BILS and Canada’s approach to Indigenous Reconciliation in a Chilean context,” says René, who was also impressed by BC’s First Nations Forestry Council.
“Gathering data on forest characteristics and socioeconomic considerations affecting forests is an important first step,” adds René. “We also need more people capable of bringing together Indigenous leaders, different levels of government and local landowners to work collectively and collaboratively on forest management strategies geared to the long-term sustainability of local populations, economies and ecosystems.”
Learn more about René’s research at FES’s Energy Resources, Development and Environment Lab (ERDELab): erdelab.forestry.ubc.ca/people.
Dr. Kim developed forensic methods to distinguish plantation-grown Fiji mahogany from old-growth material and showed that a guitar made from plantation wood had musical properties comparable to one made from old-growth mahogany, supporting the sustainable use of plantation mahogany for the manufacture of electric guitars.
We are pleased to announce the UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship faculty members who have received Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants this year.
SSHRC Insight Grants recognize excellence in social sciences and humanities research, supporting both emerging and established scholars in conducting research projects over two to five years. Insight Development Grants support early-stage research by enabling scholars to explore new research questions, test innovative methods, and develop new theoretical approaches and ideas.
Congratulations to the following recipients on their success in these highly competitive funding programs:
Insight Grants
Agni KlintuniBoedhihartono (Forest and Conservation Sciences) UBC Co-applicant: Sayer, Jeffrey (Forest and Conservation Sciences) UBC Collaborators: Arwida, Shintia, Merkel, Garry (Forest Resources Management) Advancing the role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework
Keunhyun Park(Forest Resources Management) UBC Co-applicants: Binet, Andi (School of Community and Regional Planning); Mortenson, W. Ben (Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy); Nesbitt, Lorien (Forest Resources Management) From Access to Experience: Exploring Embodied Accessibility of Urban Greenspaces in Later Life
Juliet Lu (Forest Resources Management / Public Policy and Global Affairs) UBC Co-applicant: Gergel, Sarah (Forest and Conservation Sciences) Seeing Through Sustainable Supply Chains: A Critical Look at the Tools for Tackling the Deforestation-Land Tenure Nexus
Insight Development Grants
Tara Atleo (Forest Resources Management) Reconceptualizing Total Economic Value: Non-Use Values Under Indigenous Law and Governance
Flooding in Abbotsford in 2021. Credit: BC Government.
Watersheds that are flatter, drier and warmer are generally more vulnerable to increases in flooding after trees are harvested. Those with greater variation in elevation spread runoff out over time, reducing flood peaks.
This is the key finding of a new study from researchers at UBC’s faculty of forestry and environmental stewardship that could help identify where logging is most likely to increase flood risk.
The study, published in Advances in Water Resources, examined data from nine paired watersheds in Oregon’s coastal mountain forests. The researchers found that flood responses are shaped not only by how much forest is removed, but by the natural characteristics of the landscape itself, including elevation, slope, road density and timing of snowmelt.
“The question was never simply whether logging affects floods. It was whether we understood the conditions that make some watersheds more sensitive than others,” said Dr. Younes Alila, senior author of the study and professor in the faculty of forestry and environmental stewardship at UBC. “By identifying the landscape factors that control flood response, we can move toward predicting where forest harvesting is likely to increase small, frequent peak flows as well as large floods.”
Comparing watershed responses
By comparing areas that had been harvested with similar nearby forests that remained intact, the researchers identified the landscape features that influence how water moves through a watershed after disturbance.
In mountainous landscapes, snow often melts at different times across elevations, naturally spreading runoff over longer periods. But in flatter landscapes, snow can melt more uniformly, causing large volumes of water to reach streams at the same time. Removing forests in these areas can amplify flood peaks and play a major role in determining how vulnerable a watershed is after logging.
“By studying how different watersheds respond to forest harvesting, we developed a framework that shows why some landscapes are more vulnerable to flooding than others,” said Nick Rong, lead author and UBC master’s graduate. “This approach challenges the traditional method of assessing flood impacts based on the percentage of forest harvested within a watershed and instead considers the combination of climate, terrain and watershed features that influence flood risk.”
Role of fog in flood behaviour
The study also highlights an overlooked driver of flood risk: fog. In humid forests, tree canopies capture moisture from fog and release it to the ground, while also influencing how snow accumulates and melts across the landscape.
When trees are removed it disrupts this process and can lead to more runoff during rain-on-snow events. This can make flood patterns more variable after logging – a finding that the authors say has been underestimated as a key factor in shaping flood risk.
Logging history on the southwest of Vancouver Island. Credit: David Leversee.
Implications for B.C.
The research has important implications for B.C., where forests experience similar Pacific Northwest conditions – including rain-on-snow events that contributed to the 2021 atmospheric river flooding in Sumas Prairie and southwestern B.C.
“This is especially relevant in the province because the region’s coastal mountain landscapes are complex,” said Dr. Alila. “The same amount of harvesting can have very different consequences depending on where it occurs. We need forest management approaches that recognize the natural ability of landscapes to regulate water.”
The authors are calling for a more targeted approach to forest and watershed management.
“This research reinforces the importance of managing forests at the landscape level rather than looking at individual harvest areas in isolation,” said Kyle Bishop, co-author and PhD candidate in forest hydrology at UBC. “Every watershed responds differently to disturbance, and understanding those differences allows us to develop management plans that account for the natural features that influence flood risk.”
Media contact Charlotte Fisher Marketing & Media Relations Strategist Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship University of British Columbia charlotte.fisher@ubc.ca
This event is open to all and will be held in person only.
Seminar abstract
Tree-species diversification is widely regarded as a key strategy for adapting forests to climate change. However, its economic implications remain uncertain, particularly under increasingly frequent and severe disturbance events. This talk presents a suite of empirical and normative approaches developed to assess the economic consequences of tree-species diversification under climate-driven disturbance risk, combining econometric analyses, forest dynamics modeling, and optimization. Their application is illustrated through case studies from Central European forestry, addressing questions ranging from stand-level management decisions to regional-scale adaptation under extreme weather events. The findings highlight both the potential and the limitations of tree-species diversification as an economically viable climate adaptation strategy, emphasizing how its benefits depend on disturbance regimes, management decisions, and the spatial scale considered.
Speaker
Jasper M. Fuchs is a postdoctoral researcher in the Forest Resources Management group led by Prof. Verena Griess at ETH Zurich. His research takes a transdisciplinary perspective on forest economics with a focus on forest management planning at the interface with forest dynamics, silviculture, and operations research. His work develops data-driven approaches to analyze and optimize economically informed forest management under uncertainty, linking economic decision-making with forest growth modeling, market considerations, and silvicultural practice. In 2024, he received the Gerhard Speidel Dissertation Award for outstanding scientific contributions to forest economics and social sciences. In summer 2026, he will be visiting the University of British Columbia through a Swiss-Canadian exchange project with Prof. Bianca Eskelson. From November 2026, he will join the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria (BOKU) in a tenure-track position in Forest Economics.
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CanopyFit maps urban tree sites with greatest cooling potential Melissa McHale Phys.org, Education News Canada and others
City of Kelowna used to better understand tree canopy and city landscapes Melissa McHale CBC Daybreak South
Can’t solve a puzzle? Ask a raccoon: Scientists find out why they keep looking for answers even without a reward Sarah Benson-Amram, Hannah Griebling (PhD candidate) The Economic Times
When: September 2, 10, 17 | 10-11 am (PST) Where: Online via Zoom
Online Micro-Certificates
Designed for working professionals, UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship’s wide array of programs offers an accessible opportunity to elevate your skills, engage with industry leaders and advance in your career. Delivered exclusively online, UBC Forestry & Environmental Stewardship’s micro-certificates are paving the way to providing quality, industry-aligned and accessible forestry education across Canada. Join one of the information sessions below to hear from the program director to learn more.
September 2, 2026 | 10:00 am (PST)
Bioeconomy: Pathways to a Circular and Regenerative Economy
This session will cover the following micro-certificate programs:
With extensive experience in large-scale climate vulnerability assessments across different sectors and organizations, Dr. Andrews-Key brings her expertise in the development and implementation of adaptation, specifically as applied to business cases for adaptation across all sectors. She is passionate about exploring how we can bridge science, theory and action to provide students with the comprehensive and applied knowledge necessary to excel in their careers.
