83rd Forest Industry Lecture

March 5th, 2020

Challenges Facing Forest Management in BC: WE ARE NOT ALONE!

Seminar location: ETLC E1-013
Seminar time: 3:00 - 5:00 pm

Abstract

BC's natural resource landscape is renowned for its rugged beauty and vast expanses. Our forests and range lands provide a multitude of benefits to resource dependent communities, indigenous peoples, natural resource stakeholders, recreationalists and the public in general. However, BC's forests and range lands are being influenced by a number of factors that make managing these critical resources challenging. Climate change is having an effect on how our forests grow, regenerate and respond to catastrophic events such as wildfire. Shane Berg, Deputy Chief Forester for the province of BC will talk about the many challenges facing forest management in BC currently and how many of these issues are of similar interest to forest managers in Alberta. We are not alone in how our forests are being shaped and influenced by the changing environment we all share.

Poster Session

Poster Session: 1:30 - 3:00 pm
Poster Session Location: Agriculture-Forestry Centre - Main Floor, Student Lounge Areas
Sponsor Reception & Continued Poster Session: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Location: Agriculture-Forestry Centre - Atrium, Main Floor

About the Speaker 

Shane Berg is the Deputy Chief Forester for the Province of BC and also has an Executive Director role with the Office of the Chief Forester with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. (FLNR)

Shane obtained his BSc. in Forestry from the University of Alberta and has more than 30 years of experience working within BC’s Public Service. Shane is a Registered Professional Forester (RPF) and has worked throughout the province, beginning as a Silviculture Technician in Invermere, a Silviculture Forester in Grand Forks, a Forest Planning Manager in Squamish, and eventually took on District Manager roles over a span of 14 years with the BC Forest Service in Northern BC (Hazelton) and the Southern Interior (Kamloops). He spent six years working as a Regional Executive Director with the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation until he returned to FLNR as the Deputy Chief Forester in April of 2017. The mantra for the Office of the Chief Forester is “Caring for BC’s Forests”…and Shane believes that it has never been more important that we manage our forests in a sustainable, science-based manner, considering the many changes that this important resource is facing.

Past lecture

82nd Forest Industry lecture
North America's Forest Industry: Interdisciplinary Applied Scientists Needed 

Speaker
Dr. Don Haid, corporate economist and director of industry analysis for Weyerhaeuser Company

Lecture summary
The forest industry is an integrated supply chain connecting the working forest to end-use demands from a multitude of societal, consumer and commercial needs. It reflects a competitive North American landscape with diversity of resource, administrative, logistic, manufacturing and consumer attributes, all of which seek to satisfy the appetite for products and services derived from forests. The discussion focuses on wood product manufacturing and its historic North American dynamics, exploring the shifting comparative economics of supply and demand for both finished products and forest based raw material input. Through the lens of applied sciences, foresters and related resource professionals bring a unique interdisciplinary perspective to analysis and ultimately the policies and decisions impacting resource use, sustainability and quality.

Speaker bio
Don was educated in Canada and the U.S., and his credentials include undergraduate and master’s degrees in forestry and forest economics from the University of Alberta and a PhD in resource economics from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to joining Weyerhaeuser, Don worked as an economist for the Canadian Forest Service and as a consultant with AMEC-Simons. Don’s work focuses on housing, wood products and timber sectors to provide insight and guidance supporting Weyerhaeuser businesses. Working closely with senior management, Don’s key responsibilities include price forecasting, industry outlooks for corporate planning and capital processes, and thought leadership in identifying strategic issues, emerging threats, opportunities and their implications for Weyerhaeuser.

History

The Forest Industry Lecture Series (FILS) began and developed as a collaborative event by members of the forestry community in Alberta to enrich the forestry program at the University of Alberta. The first forestry class enrolled in fall of 1970, initiated as a faculty program through the vision of Dr. Fenton MacHardy, then Dean of Agriculture. In 1975, Dr. Allan A. Warrack, then Minister of Lands and Forests in the new Peter Lougheed government, made an offer to Dean MacHardy, saying that he had done well in developing the forestry program, but students needed enrichment through speakers from outside who could bring in fresh insights. The offer was that his department would match any outside funds the faculty could raise to support a position or lecture series.

Several of the larger forest products companies in western Canada immediately responded and for two years, 1975 and 1976, this new outside funding supported two visiting lecturers: Maxwell MacLaggan and Dr. Desmond I. Crossley, whose expertise were respectively: forest industry, logging and forest products; silviculture and forest management.

In the meantime, Arden A. Rytz encouraged the sawmilling and plywood industries to add their support through the Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA), of which he was executive director. Rytz was a forester, graduating from UBC after wartime service in southeast Asia. This collaborative approach to shared funding enables this lecture series to achieve the success it enjoys today.

The first designated Forest Industry Lecture was in 1977 by the Canadian, internationally respected forester Dr. Ross Silversides, who spoke on industrial forestry in a changing Canada. The university and the Department of Renewable Resources, in particular, deeply appreciates the support of its many sponsors.

Dr. Peter Murphy
Professor emeritus