The College of New Caledonia Research Forest Society (CNCRFS) is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
To celebrate this milestone, CNCRFS has launched a legacy fund which will fund a project up to $30,000 per year for three years.
The CNC Research Forest was founded in 2009 to provide a new revenue source to sustain and revitalize the college’s natural resource and forestry education and provide for new research and learning opportunities for CNC and its students.
The society is seeking applicants with a focus on environmental improvement, renewable natural resource education and outreach programs, outdoor recreation improvement, or societal and environmental commitment to the local communities.
“CNC and CNCRFS are both very excited about this opportunity to create new partnerships and lasting legacies for local people focused on the sustainability of our natural resources,” said Tara Szerencsi, CNC vice president finance and corporate services in a release.
The spruce beetle outbreak began to noticeably affect the CNC Research Forest in 2015.
The onset resulted in a new management plan and two timber supply reviews in an attempt to reasonably forecast tree mortality and develop a quick management response.
Ultimately, the CNC Research Forest had to increase harvest level to remove spruce beetle populations and salvage spruce timber prior to significant degradation from drying and decay.
Though the forest industry is currently experiencing difficult circumstances affecting many people in the region, CNC Research Forest Manager Carl Pollard says it is the long-term mandate of the CNCRFS to ensure the Research Forest provides important benefits to students and local natural resource research for many years to come.
“There is now the opportunity to re-invest a portion of the sale of the timber back into the natural resources and people of the region served by CNC through this new legacy fund,” Pollard says in a release.
The CNCRFS legacy fund is open to individuals, businesses, community groups, First Nations communities, government agency, as well as secondary and post-secondary schools in and around Prince George, Bear Lake, McLeod Lake, Mackenzie, Quesnel, Fort St. James, Vanderhoof, and Burns Lake.
Applications packages and instructions can be found online and the deadline for applying is Aug. 16 at 4 p.m.
