Advertise on podcast: Forest Works

In his work with Foresite Consultants forester Cam Brown has become adept at the science of mapping timber supply, along with tenure management, economic analysis, and silviculture planning. He recently put some Sierra Club claims under the microscope, and found them lacking. Join us to hear the details.

This week, ForestWorks hosts Russ Taylor, a wood business and market consultant who’s been in the business 45 years. We talk markets, investment, renewable forest products in a circular economy, and the impacts of BC’s forest policy on the industry going forward.

Sustainable Forestry Initiative President and CEO Kathy Abusow joins us on ForestWorks this week. In her role since 2007, she has led the organization’s independent certification of sustainable forestry practices and expansion into conservation projects, education, and community building.

This week, former BC NDP Premier Mike Harcourt and UBC forestry professor and researcher John Innes join us on ForestWorks. Listen in for a conversation about provincial forest policy, the science is sustainable forest management, and how BC’s approach stacks up in the global context.

This week on ForestWorks we speak with two local politicians elected to serve the interests of very different communities – Port McNeill and the City of Vancouver. Both, however, are forest towns with deep ties to the industry. And both our guests have concerns about where BC is headed. Join us for the conversation.

On this week’s show was speak with Tamara Meggitt, member of a forestry family in Courtenay who has emerged as a grassroots organizer for pro-forestry rallies, events, and dialogue in BC. She had to cancel a rally planned for the legislature recently, so we thought it would be good to hear her message on another channel.

On this week’s episode of ForestWorks we speak with Dallas Smith, the founder, president and CEO of the Nanwakolas Council. The Council is an organization of five Vancouver Island First Nations with the mission of protecting and managing cultural values while building opportunity and partnership with government and industry. It recently announced an agreement with Western Forest Products.

Nanaimo Mayor and long-time NDP MLA Leonard Krog joins us once again on ForestWorks. In this episode we examine the current provincial government’s new forest policy, and the impact it will have on forest towns like Nanaimo.

This week, ForestWorks spoke to Mike Hicks, the elected Capital Regional District director for Juan de Fuca, a huge but sparsely populated electoral area covering 1,500 square kilometers of rural southern Vancouver Island – Port Renfrew, East Sooke, Malahat, and the contested Fairy Creek region. Mr. Hicks has represented this area since 2008 and is steeped in its culture and issues of forestry, fisheries, tourism, park creation, and infrastructure. In our conversation, we delve into his work with local First Nations, and his pushback at the move by other CRD directors taking a stand against old-growth forestry and logging in the area when they didn’t really understand the larger issues at play. It’s a lively one!

This week on ForestWorks we speak with Jim Girvan, Registered Professional Forester, former executive director of the Truck Loggers Association of BC, and past director of the Pacific Logging Congress. He’s served on numerous provincial committees and councils shaping forestry regulation in the province. We get into the downstream impacts of curtailing forestry in BC, and how many of the sophisticated recommendations in BC’s Old Growth Strategic Review aren’t reflected in the province’s recent decisions.

John Rustad relates his personal story in forestry first as a working professional and later as BC’s minister responsible for the portfolio.

Gary Bull is a forestry scientist and researcher at UBC - one of the world's top forest specialists with a long history of working at the global scale through the UN, WWF, World Bank, and more. Join us for this episode as we speak to Gary about the true story of old-growth in BC and how the industry is adapting to climate change and other challenges.