The importance of forestry and forest engineering: Past – present – future

Abstract

Until 1900, Canada had no foresters involved in logging, practising forestry or doing research. Forest engineering as a discipline held no importance whatsoever. The forest was simply exploited for its timbers and most of the forest products were sold abroad. During the next 50 years, four Canadian universities opened forestry schools, some research activities were organized by the federal government, provincial governments, and industry. However, the importance of forest engineering did not grow much. Since 1950, however, the situation was turned around completely, as was the industry. While forest operations were completely mechanised everywhere in Canada with machines or concepts often developed in the USA or in Scandinavia, more forestry schools were opened, the federal government opened forest research laboratories, provincial governments acquired more expertise in this field, and forestry equipment manufacturers did considerable development work. A national forest engineering research institute was even created. In the future, the forest community will have to team up to raise the profile of forest engineering. Key words: co-operation, forest engineering, forestry, forestry education, forestry research, sustainable management