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Very confident that UBC cluster of talents will achieve their goal with excellence. Good luck and keep up the great work.

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It is one thing to plant trees, but another to manage them. I know of so many plantations that were planted with good intentions and then forgotten. People need to be encouraged to thin, prune, and focus on crop trees and get rid of the trees with no future. Not many out there willing to do the hard work involved. However for the ones that do, very rewarding. Cheers

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No fire concern - there's still snow on the ground. This is to prevent get-togethers around a camp fire.

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How can anyone involved with the forest Industry be happy with the latest NAFTA update. The forest sector was not even on the radar when this was discussed. We were part of the forgotten tribe called Western Canada. We have got screwed for the last 30 years more or less with so called free trade with the States. The independent log suppliers were even worse off as they never received a dime of the tariffs that were returned to Canada. The major manufacturing plants received huge sums of money when most of the tariff was returned. What did they do with it? They went down south of the border and bought up mills down there that are now competing with our mills in Canada. I guess we got the government we deserve when we think they did us a big favor by screwing us again. George Delisle

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From my experience in the Southern part of British Columbia indicates that a similar impact from repeated fires in the dry Interior shows up in how our forests regenerate and grow. I have examples of a 650 + year old tree grown in the presence of forest fires that is the same size as a tree that is only 65 years old grown in the absence of fire. The elevation, location, soils, moisture regime, aspect, and climate are the same, the only difference I can see is the presence and absence of forest fires. Partial cutting these stands do not appear to impact the growth rate and may even increase the incremental growth if managed properly. Biodiversity can also be maintained better with a partial cut regime compared to forest fires. With this in mind I question the "let it burn" philosophy that is prevalent in today's natural resource management ideology. Can society afford to put even more carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere and lose incredible amounts of carbon stored in our forests? The impacts on wildlife are immense in bad wildfires. Maybe it is time to go back to managing our forests for forest health instead of letting fires burn. A healthy forest is a more resilient forest able to survive fire better. There is no such thing as fire proofing a forest, we can only mange it to be more resilient and make controlling the fire easier. cheers George Delisle

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While I agree that we need to adapt, we don't seem to put enough concern for people caused fires. We need huge rewards leading to the arrest and conviction for arson attacks and large penalties for stupidity!!!! If we could reduce the number of fires each year by a third, it would be an immediate benefit, while we work on reducing fuel loads and producing more fire resilient forests. The preservation mentality needs to be reworked if we are ever able reduce the impacts of wild fires. We need to take a very serious look in the mirror and ask are our preconceived ideas actually contributing to the fire problem. Cheers George Delisle

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Tell it like it is Derek and expose the falsehoods of the Wildlands League. I often wonder if that group every leaves their office to see the trees growing in the wild?

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Quality Hardwoods is also a very innovative company, having invested in wood pellet boilers about 10 years ago, to heat the plant and the dry kilns.

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An interesting article but not sure what it has to do with the forest industry?

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Long over due!!! We have got to get away from this "killing trees" mentality.

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The NDP can be blamed for the mountain pine beetle. When the infestation first broke out in Tweedsmuir Park they decided not to log it as they feared they would lose the green vote. They are the ones to blame.

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Congrats WSN Team, Excellence in workplace health and safety, means having a foundation for staff to achieve excellence in body, mind and soul. Great to see some recognition for that, and having it publicized as an example to all workplaces. Keep sustaining and promoting those ideals in your daily activities.

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Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn't show up. Grrrr... well I'm not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say wonderful blog!

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Figures. Environmentalists cannot wait for good science to raise the alarm, stretch the truth, or outright lie. Remember the spotted owl on west coast and the chaos to forestry there. Now the studies show they were never really affected by logging operations.

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Not sure why a fishing story is in a Forestry newsletter. But monitoring the fish population does not address the overfishing by the unregulated Native fishery, who can use gill nets and fish out of season, greatly impacting the fishery for all.

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It is with utter amazement that I watch this economic disaster unfold. It should not have taken an economic genius to predict this would happen 15 years ago. The outcome of the mismanagement of the pine beetle problem should not be a surprise to anyone working in the forest industry. Yet mill managers continue to demand a perfect log and throw the rest away and continue to manipulate cutting permits to reduce stumpage rates. Thirty years ago close utilization was enforced. Then in their wisdom the Ministry allowed sawmills to leave all the wood that they did not want out in the bush, as long as they paid for it as waste. This resulted in the mills cutting more wood each year to satisfy the mill's fiber demand. At the same time mills were allowed to pass on much of the "waste billing" onto the contractors. The contractors soon figured out ways to hide the waste to avoid getting huge bills from the companies. This whole process delivered a system that contributed to over cutting at the same time that a looming fiber shortage was coming at us like a freight train. Just what did these people expect? How do we hold those responsible and accountable for this mis-step in resource management instead of giving them a "promotion" or a "nice healthy pension" while the people left behind suffer?????? Yours Truly George Delisle A discussed taxpayer

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Mr. Lindsay is a great Ontarian and a great Canadian. He devoted his life to public service. I really admire him immensely and prepared to volunteer to help him in his new post in any way I can.

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Interesting that the article didn't mention that these trees are planted on private land, mostly in S Ontario. Landowners should be able to afford their own tree planting with the tax incentives they get for a managed forest and the increase in the value of their land.

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You are still burning slash You are also standing in the way of access to fiber left by forest companies You are way behind times Fiber will be developed into high value chemicals etc etc

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Please keep us up dated on the bike ride progress. I would like to see them when they reach Cape Breton Thank you