Western Forestry Contractors’ Association
Rumour Mill RoundUpDate
16 December 2024
Volume 24 Issue 1
Warning: None of the facts contained in this publication have been raised on a content farm.
BC Commits to Reverse Declining Reforestation Program
2024’s planting year looks like an exception to the declining reforestation trend driven mostly by the shrinking harvest. BC has promised to bend the curve back to 300-million annually, likely through investing more public dollars to restore landscapes lost to fire, blight and bugs..
British Columbia’s provincial planting program will drop abruptly next year to approximately 237-million seedlings; the lowest it’s been in more than a decade. Recognizing the risks this poses to the province’s forests and the ecosystem resilience contracting sector that grows and plants trees, our BC government has committed to rebuild the annual program to at least 300-million seedlings. Given the decline is driven primarily by B.C.’s shrinking annual harvest, making up for the downfall could represent doubling the Ministry of Forest’s Forest Investment Program (FIP). It currently plants between 40 to 50 million seedlings annually as part of the 2-Billion Tree B.C. joint agreement with our federal government. Increasing public investments to restore some of the vast swathes of forests lost to recent wildfires—and future ones—is provident. Nevertheless, it will require significant talent and funds for our government to not just sow, grow and plant these additional seedlings, but to survey, find, and prescribe the appropriate sites. Meeting this restoration objective will require concerted public and private collaboration including the close support and involvement of the whole reforestation service supply chain. All this has to happen in short order. Current forecasts show reforestation demand decreasing again for 2026. It takes at least two years to plan, stratify seed, sow, grow, and plant seedlings, meaning the very earliest the sector might see some relief would be 2027. In its upcoming meeting with Forests Minister Ravi Parmar the WFCA will urge him to make meeting our government’s goal of planting 300-million seedlings annually an operational priority.
WFCA Wildfire Safety Awareness and Indigenous Awareness Training For Forestry Workers Now Available to Members
A prescribed burn in the West Kootenay this fall. Wildfire Safety Awareness Training for Forestry Workers is one of four courses offered. It covers subjects from wildfire adapted ecosystems and forestry workers duties under the Wildfire Act and Regulation to reporting a fire and handling fire hand tools..
WFCA forestry training modules including three Wildfire Safety Awareness courses and one Indigenous Awareness course are now available to WFCA member companies. The online training is intended for workers and managers. The WFCA hopes that employers will use the courses as part of their permanent staff’s professional development and seasonal employee orientation and training. There is no registration charge. Students who complete the courses will receive certificates of completion. The training is part of the BC Forestry Labour Force Strategy a Labour Market Partnership between the WFCA and the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills. The approximately one-hour to 1.5 hour self-directed courses include:
• Wildfire Safety Awareness Training for Workers (Tier 1)
• Wildfire Safety Awareness Training for Supervisors (Tier 2)
• Wildfire Safety Awareness Training for Forestry Crews (Tier 3)
• INDIGENOUS CORPORATE TRAINING INC. Indigenous Awareness Training.
For more details on these courses including content, intended audience and registration, click here.
A day-long training session on building trustful relations with Indigenous nations, recruiting and retaining Indigenous workers and understanding UNDRIP will be offered to WFCA members at no cost on Tuesday 29 January 2025, the day before the WFCA Annual Conference in Victoria. The in-person class led by INDIGENOUS CORPORATE TRAINING INC. instructor Flavio Caron is intended for company directors and managers. Up to 30 seats are available. For more information please contact learning@wfca.ca.
WFCA Rumour Mill RoundUpDate Not Dead. It Was Just Resting.
After a year-long hiatus the RoundUpDate returns in time for our Annual Christmas Crop Circle Contest Winner as voted by our many readers who kindly sent notes saying they missed the RoundUpDate’s fact warnings. This 23 July 2024 circle in wheat was located in Wiltshire, England. Donations made for this photo to https://temporarytemples.co.uk/.
The WFCA Board of Directors has breathed editorial vitality back into its WFCA Rumour Mill RoundUpDate. We hope some of that breath will animate our staff of scriveners across our vast campus of researchers, fact-checkers, and typists dedicated to resisting writing robots and other assaults on the written word. They are keen to once again grace your inboxes with occasional editions as the fates and the muses should allow them. See you next edition.