| GUEST
EDITORIAL
"Partnerships for
building Saskatchewan's forest sector"
Joanne Kowalski Saskatchewan Forest Centre, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan  The
Saskatchewan Forest Centre (SFC) was created to lead development of Saskatchewan’s
forest sector based on knowledge, diversity, and innovation. The
SFC’s mandate is to stimulate the acquisition, creation, and dissemination
of knowledge that will build a socially, ecologically, and economically
sustainable forest sector for the province.
The Saskatchewan forest industry has expanded significantly in the last few years and is now the province’s second largest primary manufacturer, since 1999. New investment in primary industry is reaching the $1B mark, and will result in the creation of 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. The SFC decided the most efficient way to fulfill this mandate would be to form delivery partnerships to assist in developing technology transfer, as no main location existed where knowledge on forest activities, policies, and market information could be found. These partnerships support the industry through private sector services. The result is an office filled with people from several organizations who focus on three work areas significant to the Saskatchewan forest sector: fire/forest ecosystems, agroforestry, and value-added activity. The SFC partners to date include: Canadian Forest Service (part of Natural Resources Canada), Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada (FERIC), Forest Industry Suppliers and Logging Association (FISLA), Forintek Canada Corp., and GeoSpatial Timberline. Each partner has a specific role to play at the SFC and each contributes to the knowledge base of the industry. GeoSpatial Timberline has been with the centre since January of 2002. Greg Wickware, GeoSpatial International Inc., has been involved from the beginning in the development of the idea for SFC and is on the Board of Directors. According to Peter Sigurdson, general manager and information systems specialist in the Prince Albert office, GeoSpatial Timberline has contracted with the SFC to provide fire and forest ecology services for Saskatchewan from the Prince Albert location. This allows a base for new GeoSpatial Timberline growth in the province. Three other GeoSpatial Timberline staff members are specialists in the areas of forest management, landscape and fire ecology, and silviculture and have been contracted to SFC for three years. A fire specialist from FERIC will round out this group, responsible for the fire/forest ecosystem area of the SFC. Contributing to the value-added aspect is Forintek Canada Corp. who has three people responsible for secondary manufacturing, acquisition, and marketing of Saskatchewan wood products. The agroforestry group is made up of three agroforesters with involvement from the Canadian Forest Service and Saskatchewan Agriculture Food and Rural Revitalization. FISLA has one person in the SFC office whose focus is to facilitate business opportunities for Saskatchewan-based loggers and suppliers within the Saskatchewan forest industry. Together these partners hope to generate a substantial
contribution to making information on the forest industry accessible
in Saskatchewan through working together with each other and the Saskatchewan
Forest Centre core staff. For more information on the Saskatchewan
Forest Centre, visit our web site at www.saskforestcentre.ca
Joanne Kowalski is the Communications/Workshop Coordinator at the Saskatchewan Forest Centre in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Phone: 306-765-2859 Facs: 306-765-2844
|
| Inventory...A
History: Part 3
“In a little over 100 years, forest inventory methodologies have gone from climbing trees to get a ‘birds eye view’ of the forest.... to viewing digital aerial photographs stereoscopically on a desk top computer” Mike Sandvoss Timberline, Prince George During the mid to late 1980’s the move to more encompassing inventories was starting to take shape. Alberta was the first province to implement a trial vegetation inventory, the Collective Vegetation Inventory or CVI evolved 
very quickly into the first version of the Alberta Vegetation Inventory.
By the early 1990’s the Forest Resources Commission (FRC) in BC was formed
to investigate numerous forest management issues. One of the recommendations
of this ‘FRC task group’ was to examine, re-design and update ‘forest’
inventory procedures before the end of the decade.
In response to the ‘FRC task group's’ recommendation and ensuing investigations, the Vegetation Inventory Working Group was formed under the guidance of the Resources Inventory Committee (RIC). By 1995 the BC Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI) was developed and designed to replace the Forest Cover Inventory (currently in progress). Other provinces and territories followed suit, using these newly developed
and dynamic inventory designs as templates. The NWT and Yukon Territory
used a combination of methodologies from the AVI and VRI to develop the
Northwest Territories Vegetation Inventory (NWTVI) and Yukon Vegetation
Inventory (YVI) respectively. The changes that occurred in the late 90’s were not restricted to the re-thinking and re-design of inventory processes and standards. Readily available computer processing power was growing exponentially. Following closely behind were technologies developed to bring photo interpretation to the desk top computer. With the introduction of soft photogrammetry, foresters and photo interpreters now have a tool that they can view digital aerial photographs of any normally available scale (with the option to superimpose over the photo any or all of the base features, GPS updates, data source information or administrative boundaries) This technology has allowed users to combine all available digital information, draped over 3 dimensional images for viewing and manipulating, all at the same time. The technology also allows users to gather measurements from the images, such as heights of objects (usually trees), slope, horizontal and vertical distances. Satellite imagery availability and resolution has also literally exploded. Ten years ago there were relatively few satellites (e.g. LandSat and IRS) providing earth resources imaging to the open market. Recently launched satellites Ikonos and QuickBird provide extremely high-resolution satellite imagery. It should be noted however, with increased resolution come smaller scenes and increased cost. In a little over 100 years, forest inventory methodologies have gone
from climbing trees to get a ‘birds eye view’ of the forest, to flying
over the forest in fixed and rotary wing aircraft, to viewing digital aerial
photographs stereoscopically on a desk top computer. At the same
time, many of the field procedures and data collection requirements have
changed very little. The compass and chain are still used to get
you there; and the clinometer, tape measure, increment borer, and shovel
are still used to collect the plot data. Increasingly the GPS receiver,
portable dataloggers, VertexTM hypsometer
and other technological wonders are being added as tools to assist in increasing
the accuracy and or speed of data collection.
|
In 1996 the Province of Saskatchewan moved to initiate a working group
to develop a vegetation inventory. By the late 90’s they were well
on their way to having draft specifications for the Saskatchewan Forest
Vegetation Inventory (SFVI). Other provinces, such as Ontario, chose
to marry two ‘existing’ inventories rather than merging them into a new
inventory. The end result of all of these approaches is a combination,
in one form or another, of traditional timber inventories (including their
valued attributes), with reporting, in greater detail, the attributes of
non-timbered areas and of critical ecological attributes.
|
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. PENTICTON, BC FEBRUARY 19 - 21, 2003
"The only constant in this profession seems to be change. Events unfolding this year certainly support that statement. The convention theme for 2003: "Valleys to Vistas" captures the move from uncertainty towards a positive outlook by the Professional Forester". - Bruce Storry, Chair ABCPF 55th AGM Please drop by our booth to discuss how we can help you manage change and respond to the new challenges in your business. Contact:
Back to top. |
| If you have questions,
comments, or would like to subscribe/unsubscribe please email timberlines@timberline.ca.
SEND THIS NEWSLETTER TO SOMEONE ELSE TO READ! See
our previous issues:
|