FALL 2024 Landscapes, our award-winning newsletter has links to complimentary, balanced educational activities on sustainable natural resource management, including Indigenous voices, bursaries & youth contests with ๐ฐ prizes. |
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Welcome back to another school year! |
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While every new school year class offers some fresh faces, this teacher didn't expect to bear this furry visitor on her first day of school. See how she handled this curious student here.
What would you do? ๐ฑ
Recently a black bear ๐ป chased a boy and his dog into his Port Coquitlam home, reported by Global News.
As we often share bear habitat throughout this province, now's a good time to review what to do when you encounter a bear and how to prevent human/bear interactions, as these animals prepare for their winter hibernation.
BC does offer some Bear Aware resources teachers and parents may wish to review and practice with kids and teens.
Here are some tools:
Bear Aware Wildsafe BC Okanagan Nation Alliance Lesson Plans |
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Accomplished Mรฉtis Lawyer joins FORED BC's diverse board |
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Metis lawyer Barbara Collins โ who was recently elected to serve on FORED BC's voluntary board โ has a funny, surprising but ultimately inspirational story she shares about high school student days.๐ฉโ๐
Today, Collins is a partner in the Vancouver office of the international business law firm McMillanโ๏ธ, practising corporate finance and securities law with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and public and private financings.๐ฐ
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But if you'd told her 16-year-old self that she would be doing that one day, she probably would have laughed. Back then she was failing Grade 11 math at Queen Elizabeth Secondary School ๐ซ in North Surrey. "In Math 11, weโd get the exam and I would just look at it, put it down and put my head down on the desk and take a nap ๐ด," she said.
She recalls her lack of interest and "not thinking it applied to me and, why am I doing it?" Collins says in her early life she was "convinced" that she couldn't do math. "It is kind of ironic that I ended up doing a finance degree when Iโd failed ๐ math," she says. "But when I went back to college, one of my first courses was algebra..."
๐ Watch FORED's YouTube video for how Barb conquered her math challenge and her inspiring message to youth.
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Then, click Your Ideas button below to suggest more success stories for us to profile or lesson plans you'd like to feature. |
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National Forest Week (NFW) contest returns! Deadline: Nov.1 & PITA Event |
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Painting of Bluebird Nest by previous NFW youth contest winner Adeeb, of Centennial Collegiate in Saskatoon. |
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| โ | FORED BC is offering its annual National Forest Week art, photography & video contest for Canadian youths aged 5-18, with $150 ๐ฐ prizes.
This yearโs theme is: Two-Eyed Seeing: Welcoming all knowledge to sustain our forests, meaning how Indigenous traditions are braided with modern technologies to ensure healthy trees for future generations. | โ | |
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| โ | FORED BC to attend Provincial Intermediate Teachers' (PITA) conference in Victoria. FORED BC volunteers will be attending the fall Provincial Intermediate and Middle Years Teachers' Association conference in Victoria, Oct. 25-26 at Royal Bay Secondary.
The event features more than 80 workshops for Grade 4-9 teachers. Info here.
If you come to the conference, say hello to FORED BC and scoop some free merchandise and activities for your classrooms. | โ | |
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| โ | The featured activity for this newsletter is Seven Steps to a Seedling. which is also offered in Japanese. Feel free to share your favourite lesson plan for profile and credit. |
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Teachers Helping Teachers ๐ง๐ฝโ๐ซ FORED BC has developed many lesson plans over the years on a variety of subjects in age-appropriate categories 5-9, 10-13 and 14-18.
Many were contributed by teachers or developed in collaboration with classroom educators.
These youth activities โ are freely available on our website ๐ฅ๏ธ. Topics include: plants and animals, endangered species, tree identification ๐ฒ, the oceans, the environment and sustainability, forest fire safety ๐ฉโ๐, Indigenous knowledge and classroom adaptions for those with learning disabilities or special needs. | โ | |
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Majority of British Columbians oppose net-zero policies While B.C. residents favour renewable electricity, a slight majority (53%) oppose net-zero policies such as electric-vehicle ๐ mandates or eliminating natural gas for home heating, per a recent poll in Business in Vancouver.
"These results highlight the attitudes of British Columbians about many of the policies being deployed in pursuit of a โnet zeroโ future," said Barry Penner, current chair of the Energy Futures Institute, which commissioned the Ipsos Public Affairs poll conducted in August.
B.C.โs EV mandates โ originally set in 2019, updated with accelerated targets in 2023 โ require
26% of all light-duty vehicle ๐ sales to be zero emission by 2026, 90% by 2030 and 100% by 2035, said BIV. โAuto dealers that fail to meet these targets face financial penalties.โ
Poll Highlights:
38% of B.C. residents ๐ก support the mandates while 53% are opposed. 35% said they strongly oppose ๐คฆโโ๏ธ EV mandates while 13% were strongly in favour ๐โโ๏ธ. Despite a provincial ban on nuclear โข๏ธ power, 58% support nuclear power while 27% are opposed. Increased use of renewable wind ๐ฌ๏ธ, solar โ๏ธ and geothermal power was supported by 82%.
Summer wildfire season not as bad as feared The fear expressed in the spring that B.C. was heading for another terrible wildfire ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ season fortunately didn't occur. In late September, as fire season comes to an end, B.C. had 1,636 fires that burned 1.07 million hectares of forest ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฒ land โ way down from the record-setting 2023 fire season when 2,293 fires burned 2.86 million hectares. Rains ๐ง๏ธ in June helped keep fires down.
Lightning ๐ฉ๏ธ caused 73% of this summer's fires, while humans caused 25%. The cause of 2% of the blazes was unknown. This year will likely be the fourth worst fire season in B.C. history, behind 2023, 2018 and 2017.
You can take precautions to prevent wildfire in your community. Here are some educational resources from Firesmart BC to discuss in class or at home. |
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๐ ๐ฉ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐ผ๐ป ๐บ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ป ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ด๐ป๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฒ๐
๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ถ๐ป ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐๐ฟ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ผ๐ฟ. ๐ฒ๐๐โโ๏ธ
Former Tolko forest company CEO and now Executive Chair, Brad Thorlakson was honoured with the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) Awards of Excellence.
The award celebrates visionary leaders who have made remarkable and sustainable contributions to forestry. |
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African entrepreneur takes anti-resource activists to task
Do you want people to die today to save the planet years down the line? |
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This provocative question is from Magatte Wade, the Senegalese businesswoman, author and African prosperity activist. ๐ Wade believes activists seeking to curtail expansion of natural resources are harming low-income people, especially in the developing world, including fellow Africans.๐ง๐พโ๐ฆฑ
Expanding access to natural gas is vital to help those in need, she said, adding, โAnd if youโre not able to come to that simple conclusion, then I want to ask what kind of a human being are you?โ ๐
Many people in West Africa use biomass for their home heating and cooking fuel, she explained. This means gathering dried wood, crop waste and hardened animal dung. While western climate activists may celebrate this as a natural way of heating food and homes, itโs terribly inefficient and hazardous, she says, because women spend hours a day gathering these fuel sources rather than more productive pursuits to raise them out of poverty. Burning of biomass has been linked to many premature infant deaths, due to the air pollution it causes. "The bottom line is energy needs to be abundant, reliable and affordable all together,โ says Wade, author of The Heart of a Cheetah. Full story from MSN News is here. |
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B.C. budget deficit linked to drop in natural resource economy revenue |
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Anyone seeking further evidence that an affluent BC needs a strong resource economy should study the provinceโs Public Accounts. ๐ฐThe annual audit โ released Aug. 22 for fiscal year ending March 31, 2024 โ reported a provincial government budget deficit of $5.04 billion. (This means government spent more than it received in revenue and must borrow more money at current interest costs).
Significant decreases in tax revenue and revenues from natural resources were shown. Tax revenue fell to $46.3 billion from $49.03 billion. Petroleum ๐ข๏ธ, natural gas and mineral ๐ชจ revenues decreased by $1.77 billion from 2022/23 while forestry ๐ฒ revenue decreased by $1.23 billion. These revenues help fund schools, hospitals and social services. |
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Support FORED Indigenous Bursary & Youth Contests |
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FORED BC chair Bart Zych โ a business Instructor and employment specialist at Sprott Shaw College in Vancouver โ has launched a new fundraising effort to support youth. "As a business communications instructor at a college ๐จโ๐ซ, I can attest to the value of education to accomplish career goals," Zych says.
"I'm raising funds for FORED BC SOCIETY's youth programs, to empower Native American, |
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Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth across Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Funds would support youth bursaries on Indigenous traditional knowledge in natural resources management careers and Forest Week art contest prizes, nurturing talent.
Zych says all donations ๐ฐ โ big or small โ are appreciated and can be made at the gofundme.com page he has set up. |
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Established in 1925 by volunteers and BC foresters in government, industry and NGOs to teach forest fire prevention, FORED BC is an independent, non-partisan charity that offers award-winning educational tools about the environmental, cultural and economic values of our forests and other natural resources, including the important relationship of Indigenous peoples to the lands and waters. |
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โ๏ธ We welcome YOUR IDEAS for sharing in a future newsletter or a video. |
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