The forest sector is critical to the BC economy as outlined by Forest Innovation Investments http://www.bcfii.ca/bc-forests-and-markets/bc-forest-sector-overview. The sector provides 36% of provincial exports, is the primary BC employer, supports 7,000 BC businesses and contributes $2.5B to governments.
How can we maintain these contributions over the long-term without a vision, goals and action plan to maintain the forest asset to provide the necessary timber?
As a Provincial election is upcoming, it is important to identify to politicians the priority forest management issues and actions needed to move toward long-term forest stewardship and its contribution to community resiliency. Five (5) recommended priority issues and associated actions are presented in Political priority issues based on input from several recent initiatives.
The National Forest Week-BC has compiled data on the number of K-12 students experiencing the forest in 2016 Student participation 2016 final report. Over 37,000 students were involved but this is only 6% of the total student enrollment. Lessons learned are included.
The Teacher awareness electronic information document posted in the Teacher Resources section of the Education page provides a number of links for teachers regarding K-12 teaching resources .
BC produces a wide range of very impressive products from BC forests. A graphic description of examples-of-bc-wood-products are presented to bring this to the attention of British Columbians and others interested in some of the output from forest management.
A graphic description of the forest-management-process is presented to provide basic information for those wanting to learn about the management of BC Forests
Information on forest-sector-career-jobs and career-day-invitation-suggestions for teachers planning a career day are provided.
A series of decision-making tables k-12-collaborative-accessing-resources have been prepared to assist teachers in accessing the products and services available within the K-12 Forest Education Collaborative.
Opinion-Bill Bourgeois-The BC forest sector lacks leadership in forest stewardship. Without this, the sector is being challenged by communities and others as to whether they have the social license to manage the Crown forest. I have outlined in a BC Foresters Magazine article (Forest stewardship leadership and social license) why there is a need for foresters and communities to assume the leadership role.
A number of educators have offered advice to Premier Clark in a the Tyee article Experts Grade Premier’s Forestry Teaching Moment _ The Tyee. The comments are in response to her comments at the COFI AGM regarding the need for forestry to provide jobs for their parents and money for their hockey equipment, etc. A message of considering information on both economics and conservation is suggested along with encouraging students to think for themselves. The suggestions are very consistent with the views presented in HFHC.
