Resource Technologist Co-op;BC Ministry of Forests
This summer, I’m delighted to return to my position as a Resource Technologist with the Ministry of Forests in Merritt, BC. Building on the valuable experience and enjoyment I found last year, I’ve eagerly chosen to continue contributing to the impactful work of the Wildfire Risk Reduction (WRR) program. This type of work requires good project management and collaboration skills as you often engage with several groups including First Nations communities. Contracting is another important piece that I have helping out with.
In addition to WRR, I have been more involved in the silviculture side of things. For example, I am currently working to develop a local spatial geodatabase that tracks polygons in areas of interest that have been laid out or planted. I am thankful for the courses I took at UBC that helped me develop my GIS abilities as I regularly use ArcMap or ArcGIS pro for creating maps among other things. I have also gone out and conducted free growing assessments which evaluate the success of reforestation efforts after an area has been logged.
Additionally, I continue to play a role in the Forest and Range Evaluation program (FREP), assessing sites for values such as water quality and stand retention. This program supports our commitment to evaluating the effectiveness of forestry practices under the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA), reinforcing our dedication to sustainable forest management practices.
Returning to this role allows me to further develop professionally while reinforcing my dedication to environmental stewardship and community engagement. I look forward to another productive summer, collaborating with a passionate team and making meaningful contributions to forest management initiatives.
My name is Ivy Guo and I am working at the Prince George office of Forsite Consultants Ltd. for my second and third Co-op work term.
Forsite Consultants Ltd. is a large forestry consulting company that operates within the province of British Columbia and other various provinces around Canada.
For my current job, I assist my supervisor and co-workers in day-to-day tasks relating to various Forsite projects. These consisted of timber cruising, forest reconnaissance, and forest layout.
I gained unique professional field experience at Forsite at Prince George, and I am looking forward to more unique experiences during my next few months.
For the first few weeks working as a Parks Labourer with the Shade Trees Team at the City of Surrey, I have been inspecting tree wells to ensure they have adequate granular material surrounding them and to verify that the tree bases are in safe condition. My inspection provides contractors with the necessary information to improve the conditions of the tree bases and promote tree health.
In addition, I have gained experience using a tensiometer to measure the soil moisture of trees. This is important for newly planted street trees, ensuring they receive enough water to establish and thrive.
Through these tasks, I have developed a deeper understanding of the essential role of proper tree maintenance in supporting healthy street trees to enhance the urban ecosystem.
UBC Forestry is proud to be sending our largest delegation to date to attend the IUFRO World Congress in Stockholm, Sweden from June 23-29.
This event, held by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, is a global platform for forest science collaboration and innovation. Our faculty and students will be presenting cutting-edge research, participating in discussions on sustainable forest management, and networking with leading experts from around the world. Join us as we contribute to shaping the future of forestry at this landmark conference.
UBC Forestry Booth
UBC Forestry welcomes all to visit our booth #A04:20 to chat with current faculty and students or to collect materials about our programs and research.
In addition to our UBC Forestry booth, we will be represented at the IUFRO Canada Education booth #A01:10.
Keynote Speaker – Sally Aitken
Sally Aitken, Professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Science at UBC Forestry, is a keynote speaker at this year’s IUFRO World Congress. Her presentation titled Valuing Diversity in Uncertain Times is on Theme 3 (Friday) of the conference, Forest Biodiversity and its Ecosystem Services. Read the summary of her presentation below.
“With unprecedented rates of climate change and uncertainty around future abiotic and abiotic conditions, species and seed-source decisions for reforestation are challenging. At the same time, we are counting on healthy managed forests to provide carbon sequestration, habitat for biodiversity, and a multitude of other ecosystem services. New approaches informing forest management and conservation decision-making will be discussed that integrate climate, species distribution, and genetic models.”
Dr. Hagerman is an internationally recognized scholar in the interdisciplinary field of social-ecological systems. Her work addresses climate change and the role that forest interventions can play in adaptation and mitigation efforts. Her pioneering research on social aspects of emerging novel environmental interventions for forest management, including assisted migration of tree species, identified the interacting roles of values, trust, and the politics of knowledge, and blazed the trail for a new line of scholarly inquiry at the nexus of climate change and forests.
Through her innovative methodological approach, Dr. Hagerman’s research demonstrates the complex ways that people make sense of novel environmental risks, and how over time, decision logics about intervening in nature are changing along with the environment itself. Her work provides crucial insights for policy makers who might otherwise misdiagnose forest controversies as stemming from a lack of public support for forest interventions when, in fact, concern from publics and communities often has more to do with who is making the decisions, who is benefitting, and the types of knowledge that are considered (or not).
Dr. Cindy Prescott
Dr. Prescott is a world leader in decomposition, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and nutrient availability in forest soils. Her research is both theoretically groundbreaking and has important practical implications. She has elevated the importance of sustainable carbon and nutrient management in forests and has recommended forestry practices based on her research findings. Her recent publications presenting the scientific basis for plant surplus carbon underlying many ecological phenomena are paradigm changing.
Her research has improved our scientific understanding of the interactions between trees and the belowground ecosystem, and the influences of forestry practices on soil organic matter and nutrient availability. It has also improved our ability to restore forests on poor or degraded soils.
IUFRO Student Award for Excellence in Forest Science
Liam Gilson’s research, published in their M.Sc. thesis and subsequent peer-reviewed publication, contributes incremental science towards understanding responses of a tree species to environmental conditions outside those in its current geographic range. Their work therefore contributes to building strategies for mitigating effects of climate change on a very important tree species both ecologically and commercially.
Their research helps fill a gap in fundamental research on identifying climatic factors that explain growth differences observed at a wide range of geographic scales. Liam Gilson’s current research seeks to create climate-sensitive growth and mortality models for interior spruce (Picea glauca X Picea engelmanii), a species of commercial and cultural importance in British Columbia, Canada.
UBC Forestry presentations at IUFRO World Forest Congress
From Monday to Friday, UBC Forestry delegation will present on topics ranging from forest therapy, strategic forest management, urban forestry and more.
Here is a detailed breakdown of all UBC Forestry presentations:
Date & Time
Room
Session
Title
Speaker
Monday, June 24, 12:45 – 12:50 PM
Poster Stand 1
[Poster session 1] – S1.3 Forests in a changing world – impacts on carbon and nutrient dynamics
Spruce and aspen density treatments within the boreal forests and their effects on soil carbon and nutrients
Dr. Guanyu Wang and his team are hosting two guided forest therapy walks in addition to their sessions. All are welcome to attend the walk but registration is required.
Dates: June 25 & 27
Time: 6:30 -7:30 PM
Location: Prästgårdsparken, 12 minutes walk from Stockholmsmässan
UBC Forestry is pleased to congratulate Dr. Warren Cardinal-McTeague on being named Canadian Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Governance and Environmental Relations.
About Warren’s Research
Warren’s research centres on plant biodiversity, Indigenous relationships with the land, and the monitoring of ecosystem health and function. His work seeks to address questions about how plant biodiversity has evolved, and how we might use that information for trait improvement and environmental sustainability. As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Warren’s approach to research and teaching blends together science, art, Indigenous perspectives (specifically Métis and Cree), and the decolonial return of land and lifeways.
About Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP)
The Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP) enables Canadian universities to achieve the highest levels of research excellence and become world-class research centres. Chairholders aim to achieve research excellence in engineering, natural sciences, health sciences, humanities, and social sciences. Their contributions deepen our knowledge and quality of life, bolster Canada’s international competitiveness, and help facilitate the training of future skilled professionals through teaching, student supervision, and collaboration with fellow researchers.
The NSERC Discovery Grant Program is a competitive grant program supporting basic discovery research at Canadian universities in the natural sciences and engineering.
A new proposal has emerged in response to the November 2021 floods that swept Sumas Prairie in the Fraser Valley, causing mass evacuations and millions in damages.
Highway 1, Sumas flood by Dru! available under a Creative Commons license.
New paper finds restoring the lake will help in climate adaptation, endangered species restoration and Indigenous reconciliation
A new proposal has emerged in response to the November 2021 floods that swept Sumas Prairie in the Fraser Valley, causing mass evacuations and millions in damages.
Instead of rebuilding the dykes to manage water flows and prevent future floods, scientists at UBC, along with members of the Sumas First Nation and other research partners, suggest an alternative: let Sumas Lake, which was drained in the early 1920s and converted into the farmland known as Sumas Prairie, return to its natural state.
This can be done by buying out properties on the lakebed – a solution that is projected to cost around $1 billion, less than half of the estimated $2.4 billion cost of repairing the dykes and installing a new pump station.
“Dyke rehabilitation programs tend to assume that future waterflows will be predictable, however climate projections show that flooding events are likely to increase in the future – and the water needs somewhere to go,” says study author Riley Finn, a researcher at the Martin Conservation Decisions Lab at UBC in a paper published today in Frontiers of Conservation Science.
“By restoring Sumas Lake – Semá:th Xhotsa – we can help the region adapt to future floods, facilitating climate resiliency in the long term. It is the most ecologically responsible solution for flood management in the region.”
Ecological reconciliation
The authors note that restoring the lake will also promote healthy food systems and ecological reconciliation, addressing the ongoing harms caused by the loss of the lake to the Semá:th people.
Before its conversion to agricultural land, Sumas Lake supported thriving populations of salmon, sturgeon, ducks, and food and medicinal plants, many of which are now endangered.
Chief Dalton Silver, Sumas First Nation said “For the Semá:th people, the lake represented life and livelihood. In 1924, the lake was drained in an instance of land theft, decimating an ecology that supported a rich and diverse Indigenous food system and replacing it with a settler food system.
“My grandpa used to say that in the Coast Salish Territory, Semá:th was the central location where the people used to gather. The people gathered in the summertime as we had Semá:th Lake that once offered every species of fish right there at the front of our village and in the wintertime, people gathered there from all parts of the Coast Salish Territory for the winter ceremonies.”
Managed retreat
The study integrates Indigenous laws and oral tradition and the concept of “managed retreat” – the purposeful relocation of people and infrastructure to safer areas.
“In a time when climate-change induced flooding is predicted to increase, our study shows that incorporating Indigenous laws and knowledge is essential for developing more sustainable and just solutions,” said Dr. Tara Martin, the study’s senior author and a professor of forest and conservation sciences at UBC. “We need to explore innovative solutions, not just build more dykes.”
Humans seem to want to build bigger and better infrastructure but it is always at the detriment of our ecosystem and environment, added co-author Murray Ned, a member of the Sumas First Nation and executive director of the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance.
“Mother Nature signaled to us in 1990 and 2021 that the spirit of the Semá:th Xhotsa is alive and well, and ready to return with or without our cooperation. This research demonstrates that there are more economical and logical options that would allow us to reconcile some of the past harms of draining the lake a hundred years ago, and still maintain agricultural opportunities and the farming community in the region,” said Ned.
Interview language(s): English Written by Lou Bosshart via UBC News
Networks of Care for Green, Healthy Cities Co-applicants: Andrew Binet, Christopher Carlsten, Liv Yoon, Melissa McHale, Michael Brauer (UBC) Partners: City of Vancouver, Diamond Head Consulting, Farmers on 57th, Metro Vancouver, Tree Canada, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Zero Emissions Innovation Centre
About the SSHRC Partnership Development Grant
SSHRC Partnership Development Grants award between $75,000 and $200,000 in value for a duration of between one and three years. They support the development of partnerships or the design and testing of new partnership approaches to nurture existing and emerging opportunities for research collaboration, best practices and/or models that can be adapted by others or scaled up to a regional, national or international level.
Here’s a look at UBC Forestry in the media this month
The lake that keeps trying to come back UBC forestry scientists, members of the Sumas First Nation and other partners co-authored a study which recommended allowing B.C.’s Sumas Prairie to revert to a lake. CBC What On Earth, City News Now You Know (1:23:30 mark) UBC News coverage
We went forest bathing in Whistler and here’s everything you need to know Media mentioned a study led by forestry professor Dr. Guangyu Wang which found that forest bathing has therapeutic benefits. Daily Hive
Geese love the grassy Vancouver waterfront in June. Here’s a solution to all the poop Forestry master’s student Dominic Janus said although geese droppings can be off-putting, there is no scientific consensus as to whether the droppings are hazardous to humans. Postmedia via Vancouver Sun, The Province, Prince George Post
Research finds log booms harmful to B.C. salmon and fish habitats Forestry professor Dr. Scott Hinch led a study in collaboration with the Musqueam Nation which found that log booms in the Fraser River, a floating structure where logs are tethered together, have a significant effect on nearby habitat. CBC News
The Vancouver park board is endangered. Should it be saved? An op-ed mentioned a study by forestry professor Dr. Tahia Devisscher which found that Vancouver ranks among the least equitable of Canada’s major cities when it comes to green space access. The Narwhal
B.C. politicians debate reflooding Sumas Prairie UBC forestry scientists, members of the Sumas First Nation and other partners co-authored a study which recommended allowing B.C.’s Sumas Prairie to revert to a lake. CBC News via Yahoo,Radio-Canada,City News, Weather Network,Fraser Valley Current
As Vancouver and New Westminster plan to plant more trees, what is the best strategy? Forestry professor emeritus Dr. Stephen Sheppard commented on municipal discussions around planting more trees in Vancouver and New Westminster. CBC On The Coast
Masked bandits are taking over the world, one trash can at a time Professors Drs. Daniel Heath Justice (Indigenous studies) and Sarah Benson-Amram (forestry, zoology) were quoted in an opinion piece about raccoons expanding beyond their original territory. The Globe and Mail
Stanley Park falls victim to climate change Forestry professor Dr. Danielle Ignace emphasized the importance of consultation with multiple communities and perspectives when it comes to handling tree infestations and replanting trees. National Observer
B.C.’s wildfires are ‘different beasts’ than those seen in past decades Forestry professor Dr. Lori Daniels said wildfires are exceeding the capacity of B.C.’s existing infrastructure during a panel discussion at the Wildfire Coexistence Symposium in UBC Okanagan. Castanet
What are the top Indigenous novels and authorsin Canada? Forestry professor Dr. Jennifer Grenz (Nlaka’pamux Nation) of mixed ancestry and a restoration ecologist, integrates sacred stories, field observations, and personal experiences to present teachings from the four directions of the medicine wheel. CKNW Mornings with Simi via Spotify Podcasts
As a Professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Terry’s work is focused on applied research, biodiversity conservation sustainable resource management and linkages to levering policy influence.
Through the Co-developing Decision Support System for Coastal Mangrovebased Socio-ecological Systems in Eastern and Western Africa (CoastMan) project, Terry explores the essential ecosystem services and climate change protection that Coastal Mangroves provide to communities in Eastern and Western Africa. The main objective is co-production and uptake of a Multi-Criteria Decision Support System (DSS) that provides vulnerable coastal mangrove-dependent communities and decision-makers a knowledge-based decision-making capacity for the restoration and conservation of socio-ecological systems.
About the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF)
The New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) supports world-leading interdisciplinary, international, high-risk/high-reward, transformative and rapid-response Canadian-led research. Within the program, the International stream enhances opportunities for Canadian researchers to partner on international projects.
The 2023 International Joint Initiative for Research in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Competition is a collaborative funding opportunity designed to support international research projects addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation.
