Natural Resources committee  Did that answer your question?

Natural Resources committee  One of the issues that we have with very homogeneous forests, especially ones that are primarily made up of conifers, is they tend to be quite flammable compared to hardwood species like birch and aspen. Especially around communities, there's a great incentive to try to include b

Natural Resources committee  Oh, wow. That's a big question. The more information we have with regard to carbon emissions and forest management, the better. Even though that large area is not being managed, it actually is. If we're doing things like fire suppression, we are affecting how those forest ecosyst

Natural Resources committee  Some others have. I'm a little familiar with a few institutions that are adopting similar approaches. I believe the City of Prince George is on a similar pathway. We were looking at our systems for a way to support remote communities that are reliant on diesel generators for thei

Natural Resources committee  It's an opportunity to use the systems that have been developed through technology and have them in rural and remote communities where they are highly dependent on diesel generators. The technical problem, from what I understand—and I'm not an expert in this area—is getting rid o

Natural Resources committee  Again, I'm not the expert here. We tried developing some of these systems in some remote communities such as Kwadacha and Tsay Keh up in the north. The opportunity to heat the water is there, but there are still technical problems in for electricity generation. Where it might sav

Natural Resources committee  I can tell you a bit about it. We have been on a track for energy conservation pretty much ever since we started at UNBC. We made some great inroads with the start of our pellet plants. We have a pellet boiler that takes in wood pellets and is used to heat our greenhouse system

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I do think that is one of the best ways to move this forward. There are lots of opportunities for small and medium-scale businesses to be developed in the communities where the resources are. However, there aren't the local supports for them to do that. We don't have entrepr

Natural Resources committee  Yes. We have the Community Development Institute here at UNBC, which does a lot of research out in communities. For example, it's working with Kitimat on the developments there in terms of their industrial change over time, how that manifests itself in terms of community sustaina

Natural Resources committee  The main advantage that I think is of interest to this committee is that when we take the economic value or cost of different harvesting approaches—clear-cut harvesting and partial cutting—and combine that with the costs of the different greenhouse gas emissions that will result

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, and good morning or good afternoon, as appropriate. I am very pleased to be speaking to the committee from the traditional territory of the Lheidli T'enneh. I'm currently the acting vice-president for research at the University of Northern British Columbia