After two devastating wildfire seasons in a row, 2017 and 2018, the Quesnel Future of Forestry Thank Tank was created as a community-led opportunity to discuss challenges and opportunities in the area's forest landscape, manufacturing sector and workforce.
The think tank's goal is to rethink the regional forest sector and revitalize the region's ecosystems and economy linked to forests. The 2025 theme was "accelerating change" and saw over 50 delegates from the city, First Nations, academia, the industry and more to discuss forestry.
Ravi Parmar, the province's minister of forests, opened the event with a pre-recorded message saying the event is an opportunity for industry experts to help plan for the next 100 years of sustainable forestry.
Delegates were updated on a Forest Landscape Planning pilot in the Quesnel Forest District as well as looking at a biomass facility that could turn bush waste into replacements for items that traditionally rely on fossil fuels for production, including biodiesel and bioplastics and the new Three Rivers Community Forest, which is a joint project with several First Nations and the city.
The community forest is a way for the city and First Nations to manage forestry in a sustainable way that is designed to benefit the community as a whole.
“At this year’s Think Tank, we discussed the real progress that has been advanced since 2018 on a number of our projects to help the forest sector in Quesnel,” said Erin Robinson, the City of Quesnel’s manager of forestry initiatives in a news release.
The Quesnel Future of Forestry Think Tank investigates three questions:
- What will it take to restore the regional forest ecosystem to a state of resiliency and adaptability that will stop large scale pest infestations and wildfires from recurring?
- How can the forest manufacturing facilities in the region be re-invented and/or re-purposed to address the decline in sawlog availability and take advantage of the significant increase in non-sawlog commercial forest fibre?
- What re-training will be required to ensure the local workforce can continue to be employed in good paying jobs in the City and in the surrounding forests?
The valuable insights conversations, presentations and input from the think tank will be put together and made available on the city's website for the public.
Some of those valuable insights came from researchers who work in the area who presented their findings. This included presentations from UNBC, Silva21 and TrialFoR on forestry topics including wildfires, the health of the local ecosystem and much more. Since the think tank started in 2018 there have been 25 research projects, several peer reviewed publications and three national research projects where Quesnel was a hub across the country.
