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National Forest Week: WGCF plans full slate of events

Field tour to be held on Tuesday, Sept. 22 to look at WGCF operations in the Clearwater area – and there will be a free lunch provided
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Sunshine forms rays as it comes through a tree on a misty winter day

This year during National Forest Week (Sept. 20 – 26) a number of activities will be held in the Clearwater area to celebrate the importance of our forests to our community and to create a greater understanding of healthy sustainable forests.

In July Wells Gray Community Forest’s community forest advisory committee (CFAC) put out a call to Clearwater residents to help organize events for National Forest Week. Members from the Chamber of Commerce answered the call and a group was formed to take on this task.

This group has been working hard to ensure there will be an event for each day of National Forest Week that will be of interest to as wide a range of people as possible, such as forest professionals, tourism industry, seniors, children and the general public.

The theme of the events will be to follow up on two of the key challenges identified by the residents of winter loggingWells Gray Country in the Healthy Forests-Healthy Communities public forums held in 2011 and 2013 in Clearwater. These key challenges are: local influences in forest land decisions, and education and training.

On Monday, Sept 21, there will be two events.

Forest Practices Board member Del Williams will speak about a recent audit report on the effectiveness of Forest Stewardship Plans where they asked the question are FSPs useful for public review and comment? The target audience will be forest professionals but the general public is welcome to attend. For more information contact Bas at delaneyb@telus.net.

The second event will be a walk along the Clearwater River Trail for the Girl Guides. The girls will learn about food and medicine plants from Sharon Neufeld.

On Sept 22 there will be a field tour of Wells Gray Community Forest operations led by the general manager. Lunch will be provided, compliments of the community forest.

On Sept 23, there will be a special evening presentation by Peter Rennie, Thompson Okanagan Region's visual landscape forester.

Peter will present research findings on the public's response to the visual impacts of different forestry practices and how the results of these research projects are used to develop management guidelines, and can influence government policy. For information contact Heather at h2maclennan@gmail.com.

The organizing group is also working with Simpcw First Nation on a tree planting ceremony for Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 1 p.m. The event will be held near the Raft River viewing platform.

On Sept 24, two tours, one hour each, of a local mill has been organized. For more information contact Isabell at imhadford@telus.net.

On Sept 25 there will be a Forest Walk.

The discussion will focus on identifying forest health issues in our local forests.

Some fun activities are also being planned for the Raft River Elementary School kids.

An information table will be set up at Clearwater Farmers' Market on Sept. 19 from 9 a.m. to noon.

There will be more information provided on the events as to times and locations.

Sign-up sheets will be available for the Community Forest tour, professional workshop, evening presentation and mill tour.

Come out and enjoy our local forests.

Look for the calendar of events in this supplement.

 

Thank you to the Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation for the funding provided to put on the events.