Winners announced in National Forestry Competition


Original Story:
http://www.pulpandpapercanada.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=78177&issue=01012008

MONTREAL, QC — Three Canadian graduate forestry students havediscovered new insights that could lead to improvements and costsavings in future forest management efforts across Canada. The discoveries of Sarah Weber of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Ian Curran of the University of Alberta (U of A), and Jeanne Moore ofthe University of New Brunswick (UNB), have earned the students topspots in a national student research competition organized in Montreal by the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Network.

First-place winner Sarah Weber, Forest Resource Management, University of British Columbia determined that in light of the recent historic legal victory for the Tsilhqotin Nation in B.C. legal changes are required to support greater Aboriginal decision-making authority and stewardship roles in forest management. Changes would require a shift towards more holistic and culturally-sensitive approaches, and more equitable distribution of resource revenues and harvesting rights.

Webers research conducted in partnership with Stellaten First Nation in central B.C. identified a comprehensive set of First Nations criteria for forest tenure and governance design, which would enable the Stellaten First Nation to protect their culture and traditional territory for future generations, and support their economic self-sufficiency. Webers work carried out with Drs. Ronald Trosper and Thomas Maness of UBC, and SFM Network Principal Investigator Dr. David Natcher of the University of Saskatchewan suggests that an effective governance system would require elements from each of four alternative governance models: Community Ecosystem Trust Model, Gitanyow Planning Model, BC Community Forest Agreements Model, and the American Aboriginal Reservation Forest Management Model.

The discovery of second-place winner Ian Curran, Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta may lead to significant cost-savings for forestry companies. Curran has found that natural seedlings of white spruce a key species in Canadian forestry are much more common than estimated in Alberta clearcuts. Currently, large amounts of time and resources are spent planting white spruce in boreal mixed wood forests across Canada. Yet, Curran who examined the conditions under which white spruce is established naturally from seed on a bed of needles, leaf litter or mosses found that when there is adequate seed available from nearby trees, there can be very good regeneration in cut areas, particularly where there is aspen leaflitter rather than spruce. Many areas that were thought to be regenerating solely to aspen were found to be already regenerating to spruce without the need for planting.

This unexpected ecological bonus of spruce trees could be an economicboon to forestry companies, allowing them to reduce the amount theyspend on tree planting, said Curran, who is working in collaborationwith SFM Network Principal Investigators Drs. Vic Lieffers and EllenMacdonald at the U of A.

Third-place winner Jeanne Moore, Forestry and Environmental Management,University of New Brunswick is providing forest managers withinformation that can save them money and keep them out of trouble inthe forest, and enable trees to be grown and harvested moreeffectively. Moores work which focuses on the southeastern NewBrunswick-based Fundy Model Forest improves the precision of forestmanagement by developing new maps which overlay the most recentGeographic Information Systems (GIS) satellite information showingdepth-to-water tables on existing soils maps, and aligning them withtopography and water features.

Soils maps at present are rather imprecise, said Moore, who is workingwith SFM Network Principal Investigator Dr. Paul Arp at UNB. There isvariability in tree growth despite what the soils maps tell us aboutgrowing conditions, which means some sites are either dryer or wetterthan the maps show. Moores new maps help forest managers avoidsituations where the forest is too wet to harvest or build roadsthrough, and where harvesting equipment could harm the ecology of thesite.

Thirty-two graduate students participated in the SFM Networkcompetition nationally. Participants had to demonstrate that they hadconsidered the implications their research would have for industry andsociety as a whole.

The research projects were evaluated by SFM Networks ScientificDirector Dr. Jim Fyles of McGill University, and Scientists-at-Large,Dr. Paul Barten, Associate Professor Forest Resources, University ofMassachusetts Amherst, and Dr. George Stankey, U.S. Forest Service(retired), Seal Rock, Oregon who stated, it was clear that each studentresearcher had given considerable thought to the implicationsassociated with their work, both in terms of management applications aswell as to future research issues.

First place winner Sarah Weber will present her findings at aninternational forest symposium of her choice. Second place winner IanCurran will present his findings at a national research conference ofhis choice, and third-place winner Jeanne Moore will receive funding topresent her findings at a regional research conference of her choice.

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