UPEI’s Climate Research Lab and the PEI Woodlot Owners Association (PEIWOA) will host a public talk on sustainable forestry practices to deepen our understanding of how climate change can affect forestry management. Dutch expert Dr. Gert-Jan Nabuurs will compare European forestry practices with the situation on Prince Edward Island. The event is Tuesday, November 20 at 7:00 pm in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium of UPEI’s Don and Marion McDougall Hall. All are welcome to this free public lecture.
“On PEI, one can think of enhancing thinnings, using the low quality thinned wood for biomass and, at the same time, aim with the remaining stand for a higher quality timber—a kind of European style forestry,” said Dr. Nabuurs. “The benefit for the forest owner is not so much in the short term, but lies more in the longer term, with better stands. These operations and mindset have to change. That takes time. Access to forest is needed. Owners have to collaborate, and regular supply is needed.”
Dr. Gert-Jan Nabuurs is a professor of European forest resources at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a senior researcher at Wageningen Environmental Research (WUR). His background is in European-scale forest-resource analyses and management under climate change. His work has both scientific and practical applications.
Dr. Nabuurs is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) coordinating lead author in good practice guidance for the its fourth assessment report. He will lead the agriculture and forestry chapter in the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, starting in 2019. He was assistant director of the European Forest Institute in Finland from 2009–2012. He is member of Ministerial Advisory Committee Sustainability of Biomass for Energy Purposes, advising on certification schemes and their applicability to Dutch biomass sustainability criteria.
Although this event is important for woodlot owners and silviculture workers, Dr. Nabuurs’ ideas and experience will also be of interest to forestry contractors, environment and watershed groups, climate scientists, resource managers, local governments and chambers of commerce. All are welcome.