Over the past 83 years, Forest Nova Scotia has served as a voice of the forest industry. They bring together more than 300 landowners, forestry professionals and those passionate about our forests to explore key issues at their annual AGM. This year’s event took place in Halifax on January 24th and 25th.
The conference was hosted by Rick Archibald the President of Forest Nova Scotia. He introduced a number of speakers at the various plenaries.
Some of the highlights are as follows:
In the past couple of years, Forest Nova Scotia worked with Gardner Pinfold Consultants to conduct an analysis of the economic impact of the Nova Scotia Forest Industry. The results, finalized in December of 2016, were released at Forest Nova Scotia’s AGM on January 25th, 2017. $800 million is the total economic impact on the province from the forest sector. The sector hires approximately 12,000 Nova Scotians. Click here for the full version of the report
The Provincial Minister of Natural Resources; Hon. Lloyd Hines was present at the reception dinner and underlined the government’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emission in accordance with the Paris agreement around climate change.
Rod Badcock a partner at BioApplied shared some success stories around the Machine Operator Training (MOT) initiative; a joint initiative with the Canadian Woodlands Forum. The program was created to fill the need around a deficiency of trained equipment operators in the logging sector. This was done in collaboration with the New Brunswick Community College. The program has graduated and provided gainful employment to 8 of its participants. The introduction of the graduates of the program has produced an increase in productive time for logging contractors. There are plans to expand the program in the future to other provinces.
BioApplied also showcased the year 1 progress of the Innovation HUB with help from colleagues at FPInnovations at an information booth. The year 1 activity is focused on demonstrating the value of a BioRefinery in Nova Scotia. Please click here for more information.
BioApplied is looking forward to next year’s meeting of all the industry stakeholders.
