UBC sustainable forest management students visit

By Kathy O'Reilly, North Island Eagle, February 20 2026

 

Twenty-four University of BC Masters of Sustainable Forest Management (MSFM) students were up on the North Island recently.

The MSFM program is designed for students who have completed bachelor’s degrees in fields allied to forestry such biology, ecology, physical geography, environmental sciences, or natural resource conservation, who wish to become professional forest land managers. This is a nine-month intensive course-based program with a mix of lectures and tutorials along with substantial project work that focuses on design of site and landscape level plans. 

This year’s MSFM class is collaborating with the North Island Community Forest for the landscape level planning portion of their course work. Groups of students will work together to design a landscape level management plan, using the NICF tenure as the base for their project. The students will be drawing on the values and challenges identified by the NICF as well as the ideas discussed throughout the field tour.  

The MSFM students, led by Professor Ken Byrne, Program Coordinator Anna Tobiasz, and Helen Marcoux, manager of UBC’s Malcolm Knapp research forest, and a teaching assistant spent Feb. 9-13 in the area. 

The first day was spent at the U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay with members of Atli Resources and the ‘Namgis First Nation. 

The following three days were spent with the directors and the manager of the North Island Community Forest (NICF). 

The North Island Community Forest, formed in 2011, is a limited partnership with three shareholders who are the current owners of this business: the Village of Port Alice, The District of Port Hardy and the Town of Port McNeill.

“We spent the week visiting various locations within our tenure discussing the values, aspirations and organization of the NICF,” said Manager Meg Bose.  

“Tuesday, we visited a recently harvested cut block in our Marble River operating area, where we met with Suzanne Hopkinson, Guardian Program Coordinator for the Quatsino First Nation, to discuss Quatsino’s involvement in collaborative land management and the role of their Guardian program,” Bose said. After lunch at the Marble River Recreation Site, the group visited the Beaver Lake Interpretive Forest Trail for a taste of North Island forest ecosystems. 

“Wednesday was spent at Pinch Creek, in our Alice Lake operating area, and centered around stand management practices and recreation potential. We also visited Link River to admire the recent work that the Village of Port Alice has put into the campground, some of which was supported by funds from the NICF,” she said. 

The group finished the afternoon at the Port Alice Community Centre where they met with the current shareholders of the NICF, the mayors of Port Alice (Kevin Cameron), Port Hardy (Pat Corbett-Labatt) and Port McNeill (James Furney), where the students gained an appreciation for the role natural resources plays in rural communities. 

“Thursday, we joined Taylor Goodwin, from WFP (Western Forest Products), for a tour of a research trial established in the 1980s just south of Port Hardy.”

The Salal Cedar Hemlock Integrated Research Program (SCHIRP trials) focus on regeneration and stand establishment strategies on nutrient poor, salal dominated ecosystems, commonly found around the North Island. 

“We continued our tour and discussions of silvicultural techniques and how to grow the best trees, with a tour of Jim Burgess’ woodlot and mill, Spiketop Cedar,” Bose explained. 

“To wrap up the week, we joined a few folks that the students had met throughout the week at the Broughton Curling Club, for a meal and a game of curling,” she continued.

“The Community Forest was delighted to host the UBC MSFM class and looks forward to hearing some of their ideas that will be presented in their capstone projects this spring.”