Mayor Simon Yu could not help but notice the absence of young people at the Future of Forestry forum this week.
Yu is worried the current state of the forest industry in the province, with Interior sawmills and pulp mills shutting down permanently or curtailing their operations in response to current market conditions and the perceived lack of economic fibre is swaying younger generations away from considering forestry careers.
He told the forum crowd he wants to establish a community forest in the city managed by local government, First Nations and/or community groups to create employment and tourism and demonstrate and foster innovative forest management practices he says will encourage teens and young adults to become tree planters, work on logging crews thinning forests or in pulp and sawmills.
“It’s for education purposes, if nothing else because I know the trees we have left within our boundaries is relatively small,” said Yu. “We can work with the regional district and Lhedli T’enneh together to create an educational forest for our next generation. The education value to have more kids interested in the industry is crucial. They look at it as a dying industry. Unless we get people who want to go plant trees, and get involved, even 20 years from now when trees are all grown, there will be nobody to harvest them.”
The city had a community forest during the mountain pine beetle infestation when it needed to log dead or dying pine trees that posed a fire hazard and falling threat to users of city parks such as Moore’s Meadow, Cottonwood Island and Forest For the World.
Back then, Yu said there was no thought put into utilizing a community forest for educational purposes and he said the timing is right this year with the city revisiting its Official Community Plan on land-use management.
