Readying the 2020 Planting Season for COVID-19 Leaves Western Forestry Contractors’ Association Short Funds

The Western Forestry Contractors’ Association is accustomed to fighting out of its weight category when it comes to influencing policy and practice in B.C. forestry. But the heavy lifting it took to set standards, win public acceptance, and recover safety costs in order to plant trees during this pandemic has come at a price. Now the association is asking its members, and non-members who benefited from its leadership, to help raise $70,000 needed to restore its 2020 budget and stay in the fight with COVID-19 in 2021. These costs have come from the additional WFCA political and safety consulting needed to enable the 2020 planting season to proceed and to support the silviculture sector as it dealt with COVID-19 risks. The WFCA is hoping that forestry field service employers who don’t pay the WorkSafeBC levy that supports the BC SAFE Forestry Advocate’s work, and non-members of the WFCA – particularly the wildfire fighting and planting contractors – will contribute.