The Distinguished Forester and the Carbon Conundrum Top Day Two at ABCFP Conference

Topping off day-two of the ABCFP conference in Victoria was the President’s Awards Banquet where more than a dozen forest professionals and others were honoured for their outstanding work in sustainably managing BC’s forests. The association’s highest honour for a member—the Distinguished Forester Award—went to Lorne Bedford RPF for his decades of work in forest practices and silviculture with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The award recognizes an individual for outstanding service to the profession of forestry and for furthering the principles of the association. …A feature panel [for us inquiring Frogs], was on the carbon conundrum and the potential of managing for timber and carbon at the same time. The experts included Dr. Werner Kurz, (Pacific Forestry Centre) Satnam Manhas (Ecotrust Canada) and Albert Nussbaum (BC Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch). The key takeaway being that climate change is serious business; the associated issues of wildfire and beetles are key to carbon management, and forests and forest management can play a helpful role.