Faculty of Forestry
About the Faculty
The Faculty of Forestry has amassed a huge array of expertise and many of the Faculty members can count themselves as being amongst the best in their field. In the past, we have tended to focus on British Columbia, but it is clear that while we still have major contributions to make here, the value of our expertise extends far beyond the province’s boundaries. For example, the Africa Forests Research Initiative on Conservation and Development is addressing topics such as poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihoods, social equity, and conflicts over natural resources. Our Centre for Advanced Wood Processing is not only Canada's national centre of excellence for education and research related to wood products processing and advanced wood products manufacturing, but has been taking this expertise to develop an education program for furniture design in South Africa. In another example, work on criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management in British Columbia has recently been extended to China.
Schools/Departments within Faculty
Forestry graduate degrees are offered at the Faculty level, not through departments. However, research-based students (PhD, MSc, MASc) have a department affiliation based on their research supervisor’s area of interest.
Departments
- Forest Resource Management
- Forest Sciences
- Wood Sciences
Research
- Forest Resource Management: includes research areas such as Biometrics/Mensuration, Forest Engineering Hydrology, Environmental Perception and Visualization, Recreation and GIS, Forest Economics and Forest Policy, Forest Engineering, Forest, Energy Policy and Governance, Growth and Yield, Sampling Design, Remote Sensing and Spatial Data Modeling in Forestry and Ecology, Silviculture and Stand Dynamics, Sustainable Forest Management, Cumulative Impacts Analysis, First Nations, Timber Supply Planning, Visual Management, Planning, Visualization.
- Forest Sciences: includes research areas such as Aquatic Ecology and Fish Conservation, Avian Ecology and Conservation, Fire Science and Water Quality, Forest Ecology and Silvics, Forest Genetics and Gene Conservation, Molecular Genetics, Genomics and Biochemistry of Forest Trees, Forest Nutrition, Plant Physiology, Population Ecology of Birds and Mammals, Population and Quantitative Genetics, Quantitative Genetics, Silviculture, Soil Microbial Ecology, Stream-Riparian Ecosystems, Watershed Landscape Ecology.
- Wood Sciences: includes research areas such as Biotechnology and Chemistry of Wood Fibres, Forest Products Biotechnology, Forest Products Biotechnology, Operational Research, Performance Assessment, Photoprotection and Modification of Wood, Polymer Chemistry and Materials Science, Sustainable Business Management, Wood Composites, Wood Mechanics, Wood Physics and Drying.
Off-campus facilities include three Research Forests: the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest in Maple Ridge, the Alex Fraser Research Forest near Williams Lake, and the Aleza Lake Research Forest near Prince George (co-managed with UNBC).
