| |  | |
Commonwealth
Forests | | |
 History
Canada, like India and Australia, is a federal nation so that the greater part of forestry activity
is decentralised, with responsibility for forest management lying with the Provinces. Canada’s
forest traditions owe more to the ideas of Pinchot, who was the founder of the US Forest
Service, than to the Germanic/Indian tradition that lies behind the structure of forestry in the
other Commonwealth regions. The Canadian Forest Service, which celebrated its 100th
anniversary in 1999, is the primary agency for forest research at the federal level. The
research is conducted in a series of regional centres and also, for a period, in several national
research institutes. A separate Forest Products Research branch, with two laboratories,
provided research in solid wood products until the 1970s when it was privatised. Forest
industry funded and set up Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada and later the Forest
Engineering Research Institute of Canada. The work of these labs and institutes has
continued to be supported by the federal government as well as by the forest industry, and is
currently being combined into an integrated Fibre Centre.
Most of the Provinces have had their own forest research divisions, but presently only the
British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec still maintain separate forest research groups.
Universities have always been an important part of the forest research effort in Canada. Four
universities have a long history of forestry education and research – University of British
Columbia, University of Toronto, Université Laval (Quebec City) and University of New
Brunswick. Since the 1970s, three more universities have developed specific forest research
programs, and a number of others have faculty members involved in forest-related research.
|
