March 2019
Your 5 Minute Forestry Update
2019 Industry Forum &
 Forest NB and ARPFNB AGMs
From left to right: Mike Légère, excutive director of Forest NB, Blaine Higgs, Premier of New Brunswick and Terry Noble, Chariman of Forest NB, attending the banquet on the 13th of March 2019.












Fredericton N.B .– 2019 Industry Forum and the annual general meetings of Forest NB and the Association of Registered Foresters of New Brunswick (ARPFNB) welcomed many forest sector professionals and leaders as well as Premier Blaine Higgs and Minister of Energy and Resource Development, Mike Holland.

It was quite an event with many informative plenary sessions on hot button issues in the forest industry such as the use of glyphosate, taxation, the softwood lumber dispute and review of the Crown Land and Forests Act.

On March 13, Premier Blaine Higgs attended the opening banquet citing that he “(...) recognizes the importance of the forest sector in communities and New Brunswick’s economy, and realizes that forestry is hard work (...).” Not in recent memory has a Premier attended the Forum and we are glad the new Premier recognizes the importance of the forest sector in NB.

  Dr. Joe Schwarz , director of the Mcgill Organization for Science and Society, in presenting the forum dinner keynote explained “(...) 99.9% of chemicals are natural and the dosage creates the poison (...) glyphosate does not pose a risk to humans when administered correctly .The presentation corrected a lot of mis-information concerning glyphosate and other commonly used chemicals. The independent Organization for Science and Society of Mcgill is a scientific office, dedicated to communicating scientific facts to the public and stimulating critical thinking. For more information, visit www.mcgill.ca/oss/
Mr. André Pouliot , senior manager at Turner Drake, explained the impacts on the forestry sector of Bill 9 a bill to amend the tax assessment act.  “Bill 9 is mostly aimed at industrial sectors who use machinery and equipment in New Brunswick. The bill would make it very hard for these industries to be competitive if it stays as is (…).” Forest NB is still working hard at stopping this bill or future iterations as it risks discouraging private sector investment.

The event ended with Mr. Colin Barker , director of softwood lumber division at Global Affairs Canada, Mr. Barker provided an update on the softwood lumber agreement between the United States and Canada. “ The government has made significant efforts to diversify trade with other countries. We are still working on the softwood lumber agreement to get an exemption of duties for New Brunswick .”


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N.B. BUDWORM HOTSPOTS DOWN BY 90% IN 2018
Healthy Forest Partnership hosted two information session in Edmundston and Bathurst on February 20. Dr. Sarah Edwards and Dr. Rob John were happy to announce that areas of concern for elevated budworm population was down 90% in 2018 in New Brunswick. 
A combination of factors including successful monitoring and treatment have contributed to the decrease of insects in the forests. The team also performed many tests on New Brunswick's forest and water sources and concluded that insecticides have a minimal presence and impact on other wildlife and insects.
The research team is delighted with the news but will keep monitoring forests to prevent an increase in population.
For more information,
click here
Winner of the Ernie Strickland Memorial 
Scholarship
Congratulations to Yani Gendron , the Ernie Strickland Memorial Scholarship winner. Yani works at Groupe Savoie in St-Quentin and he is presently completing an industrial mechanic course. He enjoys the manuel work and is happy to be in this field.

Since 1998, Forest NB's Ernie Strickland Memorial Scholarship has awarded 1000$ to a student who is or has a family member, employed by a member company of Forest NB.


Ernie Strickland, who passed away in 1996, was an instructor at the Maritime Forest Ranger School and a dedicated volunteer to the forestry sector. The scholarship was originally created by the New Brunswick Sub-Licensee Forestry Alliance (NBSLFA) to recognize his exceptional contributions made to   the New Brunswick forestry sector.

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Next Month: How the arrival of carbon pricing will effect forestry.