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B.C. hands out woodlot management award

The Davidson brothers are being honoured with the $2,500 Minister’s Award for Innovation and Excellence in Woodlot Management for the south area, recognizing the keen focus they have had on integrated resource management and healthy forests.

This focus on forest stewardship began when they took over the woodlot licence from their father, Don Davidson, in the early 1970s.

Examples of their care for the land include practising selection harvesting, particularly of lodgepole pine, that has left behind a fully stocked stand of two-to-four-metre Douglas-fir for the next crop. Those driving by the woodlot are not likely to realize that it has been selectively logged several times because of the Davidson’s attention to aesthetics.

Their salvage logging of blowdown has helped prevent any outbreaks of Douglas-fir bark beetle and reduced wildfire risk for their woodlot and surrounding area north of Rock Creek. They have also been proactive in dealing with small pockets of root rot on their woodlot.

The Davidson’s love of land and everything in it is best exhibited by their actions to nurture all living things on their woodlot, from the hand-made brush piles they leave for squirrels and mice to live in, to the logging debris pile they deferred from burning because a bear had taken up hibernation in it.

The Davidson’s woodlot contributions extend to the community as well, from making sure the right log goes to the best processing plant, to preserving numerous small campsites that hunters use in the fall. This is in addition to hosting tours of their woodlot and their thorough involvement with their local Boundary Woodlot Association.

The awards are funded by the Province of British Columbia and administered by the Federation of BC Woodlot Associations. Each year, the awards recognize a woodlot licensee representing each of the coast, south and north areas, along with an overall top performer. Award winners are nominated through official submissions from their fellow woodlot operators.

“Woodlots provide opportunity for greater local input into the type of integrated forest management and resource stewardship exemplified by Bob and Dan Davidson. I offer them my sincere congratulations on a job well done,” said Steve Thomson, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

“Congratulations to the Davidsons. Bob and Dan’s focus on biodiversity is a model that all of us woodlot operators should strive to follow – from preventing wildfire and pest outbreaks through salvage of blowdown, to their care for creatures great and small. They also set the benchmark for being good neighbours by paying attention to aesthetics and their contributions to the local community,” said Mark Clark, president of the Federation of BC Woodlot Associations.

British Columbia has over 860 active woodlots. Each woodlot generates jobs in planning, harvesting, road construction and maintenance, reforestation, silviculture and small-scale timber processing.

Woodlots generate $200 million of economic activity for the province every year.