"Presenting at the Conference was a great experience and makes me proud of the work Wahkohtowin is doing in Ontario within the Indigenous Forestry space"
- Isabelle Allen RPF, Wahkohtowin Development -
..... Due to the record-breaking fire year Canada faced in 2023, fire management, prescribed fire, cultural burning, and emerging science were featured heavily in the agenda and spoken about by many presenters......
On September 24-27th, Project Forester Isabelle Allen travelled to Nanaimo B.C. to attend the Canadian Institute of Forestry’s (CIF) National Conference and 115th AGM. The theme of the conference was “Forestry for All” which was chosen to bring together those with differing values on forest management ideologies, including foresters, academics, activists, First Nations, and lay people. Due to the record-breaking fire year Canada faced in 2023, fire management, prescribed fire, cultural burning, and emerging science were featured heavily in the agenda and spoken about by many presenters. A short video describing the benefits of cultural burning and prescribed fire can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMg4l5ClG70.
While at the conference Isabelle was able to give a presentation about Wahkohtowin’s collaborative research project with the Centre for Northern Forest Ecosystem Research (CNFER) titled: Indigenous participation in advancing sustainable forest management strategies. This talk covered the two year project which involved creating ‘virtual tour’ documentaries, one each from the Indigenous and government perspective, and using them to have a discussion about the social acceptability of forest management intensification in the Boreal forest around our owner communities. The final report from this project is still under review but should be available on the Wahkohtowin website by the end of 2023. Additionally she co-presented a HAP poster titled: Weaving Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science for Sustainable Vegetation Management with colleague Dr. Nelson Thiffault from the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre.