Your OWA at Work

The Communications Committee

Members of our Executive Committee met with Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry staff and with Minister Yakabuski in February. A number of themes were discussed including support for our various projects and strengthening the Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program (MFTIP) so that what the OWA offers in products and services is more available to program participants through OWA membership. Our Executive maintained that this would help to further encourage good stewardship and proactive use of best management practices as part of the MFTIP. Our Community Forest Owners Cooperative Pilot Project is progressing very well. Heideman Forest Services has committed to be our industrial partner for the Fleetwood Pilot, with Eleanor Reed of Kawartha Chapter working as our lead on the ground. We should be harvesting properties by early summer. Meetings with the partners in the Huronia/Couchiching Pilot have gone well, map products using the LiDAR data, and promises to inform the larger project we will be undertaking in the near future with the Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio Economy (CRIBE) to develop private land forest inventory and a silvics library for southern Ontario. with the approach now well-defined and willing A number of funding proposals have been landowners identified. A University of Toronto submitted with respect to our new projects. The Master of Forest Conservation (MFC) student—Shan list includes the Trillium Foundation Resilient Shukla, has also joined the project to help objectively Communities Fund, CRIBE, MNP, Ontario Power analyze our Cooperative model. Both the Kawartha Generation (OPG), Cascades Pulp and Paper, Land Trust and the Couchiching Conservancy have Forestry Futures Trust, and the Sustainable Forestry been excellent partners with these pilots. There are Initiative (SFI). Funding from CRIBE, MNP and thousands of hectares of plantations across Ontario Cascades has already been committed, and we that are in need of thinning. The long term vision of remain optimistic for the outcomes of the other the OWA is that what we learn from the pilots can proposals.be applied to other areas of the province. In terms of events and activities, we have started to The Woodlot Economics Study Phase 2 is back organize our virtual conference and annual general on track with another University of Toronto MFC meeting for April 22nd to 24th, 2021. Stay tuned student—Ben Gwilliam, now on board. Murray through our e-newsletter and e-news blasts for more Woods-TreeDimensions will be working with Ben information and to register. Also, we have set the to process existing LiDAR dates for Woodlands Appreciation Week for May data for the United Counties 8th to 15th, 2021, and have already started to plan of Prescott-Russell into province-wide media outreach. Planning for special useable forest inventory, events and activities is also underway. allowing analysis and modeling of specific case You will notice that this issue of the Ontario study landowner data Woodlander (Vol. 102) has been delivered with a for economic value based Mark’s Work Warehouse discount card. Mark’s has on applying best forest agreed to provide these 10% discount cards for all management practices. The OWA members and families for the next two years! project is already generating interesting preliminary In closing, the OWA is pleased to welcome Erica

Erica Dixon information and thematic Dixon to our staff. A graduate from Richard Ivey

Thematic map of canopy cover derived using LiDAR data for the United Counties of Prescott-Russell