Protecting Canada's Forests
Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience Leads Canada’s Wildfire Fight
With record wildfire seasons, Canada is expanding support for provinces, Indigenous communities, and first responders while building long-term resilience. We sat down with The Honourable Eleanor Olszewski to discuss.
What supports are in place to help high-risk rural and Indigenous communities prepare for wildfires?
This year, wildfires impacted many rural and Indigenous communities across the country, and it takes a true team effort to assist these remote communities. Through programs such as the FireSmart initiative and funding that provides support for the purchase of specialized wildfire suppression equipment, in collaboration with provinces and territories, we help equip local first responders with the tools they need to fight increasingly challenging forest fires. We also work closely with and directly fund the actions of organizations like the Red Cross who play a key role in supporting evacuees from remote communities. For Indigenous communities, Indigenous Services
Canada is on the ground and constantly working to ensure the federal government responds quickly in times of crisis and through the Emergency Management Assistance Program (EMAP) we directly support rebuilding and prevention efforts when communities are affected by wildfires. When local capacity to respond is exceeded, we’re always there to help and this summer we deployed the Canadian Armed Forces multiple times to successfully evacuate Indigenous communities threatened by forest fires. Our federal government is working collaboratively with provinces, territories and Indigenous communities to lead across the four pillars of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.
Beyond fire bans, how can Canadians directly support forest protection and wildfire resilience?
It‘s a great question – an increasing number of wildfires across the country are human caused – and I think we all need to be aware of what we can do to help. Following provincial fire bans and restrictions is critical, but it’s more than just campfires that can be an issue. We also need to do things like ensure proper maintenance and use of heavy equipment and off-road vehicles, particularly
in regions impacted by drought conditions. These measures can help save lives and protect our communities, especially during periods of high fire risk.
People who want to do more to protect their communities can also adopt FireSmart property management practices and take steps in their own homes to make their community more fire resistant.
Taken together all these things make a big difference, and this kind of public education and increased risk awareness contributes to proactive, long-term wildfire resilience across the country.
Has the federal government considered new policies or frameworks that could centralize wildfire resources and expertise?
The federal government, in cooperation with provinces and territories, uses a number of tools to manage firefighting resources including the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). CIFFC plays a critical role coordinating resources during wildfire season, for example moving firefighters and waterbomber aircraft from one province to another based on critical needs.
This year is now the second worst fire season in Canadian history. As a result, we are actively looking at all options to strengthen the federal government’s approach to emergency management, so we are better able to respond to wildfires and other hazards like hurricanes, floods and cyber incidents. We are drawing lessons learned from past wildfire seasons and exploring models from all around the world to identify approaches that fit our federation. A new federal emergency management agency could lead and coordinate federal disaster response while ensuring that it is additive to the country’s overall emergency management capabilities and our collaboration with provinces and territories — not another layer of bureaucracy.
Celebrating
Canadians are invited to celebrate National Forest Week from September 21–27, 2025 — a one-week national campaign led by the CIF-IFC. Canadian Institute of Forestry / Institut forestier du Canada (CIF-IFC)
This year’s National Forest Week theme of “Roots of Resilience:
From Seed to Canopy” is a fitting celebration of Canadian forests and the foundational role they play in Canada’s economy, environment, culture, identity, and well-being.
From the tiniest seedling to the tallest tree, every stage of a forest’s life reflects resilience. Across the country, Canadians are playing a vital role in supporting forests as they grow and evolve to help these ecosystems thrive despite the pressures
of changing climate, wildfires, and other environmental challenges.
“National Forest Week is a time to reflect on the roots of resilience that connect our forests, communities, and cultures across Canada,” says Curtis Cook, Executive Director of the Canadian Institute of Forestry / Institut forestier du Canada (CIF-IFC). “By working together to protect Canada’s forests and biodiversity, we help ensure that these vital ecosystems continue to support current and future generations — from seed to canopy.”
Forests are part of Canada’s identity and a foundation for a sustainable future. Through science and innovation, collaboration, and shared knowledge, we can ensure our forests continue to thrive for years to come.
Join us for National Forest Week, September 21–27! As Canada's oldest forestry society (established in 1908) and the proud Voice of Forest Practitioners, the CIF-IFC invites you to celebrate our forest heritage and help raise awareness about this valuable and renewable
Curtis Cook Executive Director, CIF-IFC
To read the entire interview with
The Honourable Elanor Olszewski visit innovating canada.ca
Katherine
Population growth is accelerating in wildfire-prone areas of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. “It’s important that these home and business owners recognize the risks of living in these regions,” says Stefan Toivonen, co-founder and COO of B&T Wildfire Technologies Inc. “We help our clients proactively prepare themselves and their structures, so they’re ready for any scenario.”
B&T Wildfire Technologies is on a mission to empower communities to protect properties against wildfires. Bringing expert knowledge in wildfire management, forestry operations, and urban firefighting, the company provides critical defence systems for buildings. Its sprinkler protection kits are engineered to target ember-caused fires on homes and buildings. Creating a humidity barrier at the apex of a structure, these systems are easy to set up and deploy. Plus, all of its high-quality products are Canadian-made with resources sourced in North America.
Be ready for anything
The company complements these tools
with consultation services, delivering customized structural protection solutions for businesses and homeowners alike. With over 40 years of combined expertise, the B&T team provides unmatched guidance and crafts tailored emergency response plans, sprinkler deployment strategies, and comprehensive risk mitigation plans.
The company is proud to be leading this important industry forward, delivering innovative equipment and vital resources. “Wildfire safety isn’t something to start when a fire is approaching your home. It's something you factor into your property and mindset today and every day moving forward,” says Ryan Burlingame, B&T’s co-founder and co-owner. “Our kits are a great way to start. They’re built to be accessible, practical, and effective.”
Forests Canada Reaches 50 Million Tree Milestone
Forests Canada has hit an exciting milestone this year, but this is just the beginning of much more to come.
Kaknevicius, CEO, Forests Canada
Jess
We’re celebrating National Forest Week with a very special milestone — Forests Canada has proudly supported the planting of 50 million trees on more than 10,400 project sites across Canada.
The collective environmental and economic impact of all those new and restored forests is an important part of our history, but we also know our work has only just begun. Faced with increasing wildfires, biodiversity loss, and extreme weather events, it’s more important than ever to continue with the movement we started.
Our forests do so much for us — we need to keep working hard for them Forests Canada would not have been able to reach this milestone without the expertise and dedication of our 100-plus planting partners, including seed collectors, nurseries, field advisors, forestry specialists, and conservation and community partners, as well as the thousands of people from coast to coast to coast who have participated in our planting program.
This achievement would also not have been possible without the support of countless individuals and organizations, including donors, corporate partners, First Nations communities, and all levels of government.
It takes a community to grow forests
As we celebrate our 50 million tree milestone, we’re doing so together with the many people and organizations that also believe in our mission to conserve, restore, and grow Canada’s forests to sustain life and communities.
On behalf of all of us at Forests Canada, thank you to everyone who helped to make this possible. Together, we are growing something truly beautiful.
Planting Living Corridors with Tree Canada
Climate change is fraying Canada’s forests. Tree Canada’s biodiversity program weaves them back together with native trees, strong partnerships, and measurable results.
Veronica Stephenson
On a summer evening in southern Ontario, you might see a yellow warbler flit through the branches of a red oak, pausing to snap up a caterpillar. That caterpillar depends on the oak’s leaves, and the oak in turn relies on healthy soil and a web of fungi and pollinators. When one link falters, the chain weakens. Climate change is straining these crucial connections.
Winters once harsh enough to kill off invasive pests are now milder, allowing insects like the emerald ash borer to spread unchecked. Droughts and floods strike with greater intensity, while forests stressed by drought or insects are more vulnerable to fire.
“We’re seeing more impactful weather events and more outbreaks of pests that once would have been kept in check by colder temperatures,” says Randall Van Wagner, Head of Tree Canada’s National Greening Program.
“It’s a big problem because trees in the boreal forest are really the lungs of the earth. They produce oxygen, store carbon, and support the interconnected web of life.”
Tree Canada, a national nonprofit, works to restore balance to these ecosystems. Through large-scale reforestation projects, the organization brings together landowners,
scientists, Indigenous communities, and funders to plant native trees and shrubs where they’re needed most. Its newest initiative — a dedicated funding stream for biodiversity projects — focuses on reconnecting fragmented habitats to give species the space to survive and adapt.
Stitching the landscape back together
At the heart of Tree Canada’s new biodiversity program is the idea of connectivity. Many of Canada’s richest habitats — national parks, wetlands, and conservation lands — are cut off from one another by farmland, highways, or cities. Isolated pockets of forest can’t easily sustain healthy populations of plants and animals. The program aims to bridge those gaps by planting diverse species in the spaces between, creating living corridors that allow native flora and fauna to migrate and thrive. This work is collaborative by design. Tree Canada uses maps of Key Biodiversity Areas to guide its efforts and works closely with Indigenous groups, conservation authorities, and local landowners to put plans into action. National partners like Birds Canada, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Wildlife Conservation Society are involved as well, alongside Environment and Climate Change
Canada. Federal support through the 2 Billion Trees program has allowed Tree Canada to focus on biodiversity outcomes by hectare rather than the number of trees planted, and corporate sponsors are increasingly stepping forward to match those funds.
Tracking life’s return
Every project includes long-term monitoring. Baseline surveys are carried out before planting, then repeated years later with tools like acoustic monitors for birds and frogs, insect traps to measure species richness, and satellite imagery to track growth.
These measures reveal whether a onceempty farm field now supports pollinators, whether migrating birds are arriving in greater numbers, and whether a young forest is on its way to becoming a thriving ecosystem. “It’s how we measure our biodiversity impact, learn about the sites, and improve year to year,” Van Wagner says.
Canada’s forests may be under strain, but renewal is possible. With every native tree planted in the right place, a corridor is slowly restored, an insect species finds a host, and a migratory bird gains a meal. Piece by piece, the web of life can be rewoven — and with the right partners, strengthened for generations to come.
Randall Van Wagner Head of National Greening Program, Tree Canada
was sponsored by Forests Canada
Jess Kaknevicius CEO, Forests Canada
The University of New Brunswick Leads the Way in Forestry Innovation
New Brunswick is quietly becoming Canada’s global forestry innovation leader thanks to many decades of forestry expertise.
Dr. Michelle Gray
Dr. Michelle Gray Dean & Associate Professor, Forestry and Environmental Management
On a crisp autumn morning in New Brunswick, a drone hovers above a canopy of spruce and fir, transmitting real-time LiDAR scans that reveal the forest’s health down to the centimetre. On the ground, University of New Brunswick (UNB) researchers walk through permanent study plots, some having been monitored continuously for decades. In their labs, researchers merge field notes with satellite imagery, creating models that can predict how forests will respond to pests, fire, or climate change.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s happening right now in New Brunswick, a province where forestry has long been the backbone of the economy — and where a quiet revolution in digital forest innovation is underway. It also builds on more than a century of expertise: UNB’s Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management (ForEM) has been educating foresters since 1908.
A legacy industry meets new technology
Forests are more than an economic driver. They’re vital to Canada’s climate resiliency, biodiversity, and cultural identity.
Forestry has shaped New Brunswick for centuries, supporting tens of thousands of jobs from sawmills to paper plants to high-tech analytics firms. What’s changed is how the province manages its most important natural assets.
New Brunswick was the first jurisdiction in North America to comprehensively map its forests using LiDAR. Combined with one of Canada’s most extensive permanent sample-plot networks, this has produced an exceptionally rich foundation for research and management. The province also led early forest inventories: a province-wide aerial survey in the 1950s and GIS adoption in 1982 made New Brunswick a pioneer in forest management.
UNB’s ForEM is home to world-class researchers whose scientific contributions in silviculture, remote sensing, sustainable forest management, and forest health evaluation are helping shape how Canada protects its forests today.
Building the forest’s digital twin
The vision is bold: to create a “digital twin” of New Brunswick’s forests. By integrating LiDAR, satellite feeds, climate projections, and field data, such a platform can simulate scenarios — from invasive species to wildfire behaviour to harvesting impacts.
Building upon the success of the Healthy Forest Partnership’s Early Intervention Strategy (EIS), which has focused on protecting forests from the impacts of spruce budworm, researchers in New Brunswick are demonstrating how early detection and predictive analytics can protect forests from pests and diseases. The vision is to extend this model to other major disturbance risks, from wildfire detection and prevention to increasingly severe wind events such as hurricanes and large-scale windthrow. At the same time, climate change is reshaping the growth patterns of key tree species, with long-term implications for wood supply, carbon storage, and biodiversity. Together, these challenges underscore the urgency of developing data-driven tools that help anticipate change and guide sustainable management.
The implications are global. A digital twin of New Brunswick’s forests will guide sustainable management at home while providing a model for other regions and a foundation for Canadian companies to commercialize new tools in international markets.
An ecosystem of innovation
This work doesn’t happen in isolation. UNB researchers collaborate with federal scientists at the Canadian Forest Service, Indigenous knowledge holders, colleagues at l’Université de Moncton and New Bruns wick Community College, and local firms like Remsoft, a global leader in forestry analytics. Large companies such as Acadian Timber and J.D. Irving Lim ited, are embracing digital methods that improve both environmental stewardship and economic performance.
Equally important is collaboration. Governments, universities, industry, and Indigenous communities are shaping Canada’s most advanced forest innovation ecosystem. With support from the McKenna Institute, UNB is positioning itself as a national hub where natural resource management and digital innovation meet.
The rising toll of wildfire
The urgency of this work has never been clearer. In recent years, wildfires have scorched millions of hectares across Canada, destroying homes, displacing families, and threatening wildlife and ecosystems. New Brunswick has not been immune — communities here have faced evacuations and habitat loss as fire seasons grow longer and more unpredictable. Across the country, from the boreal north to the coastal west, species that rely on intact forests are under mounting pressure. Protecting Canada’s forests is no longer just about timber supply or recreation — it’s about safeguarding biodiversity, reducing carbon emissions, and protecting communities from escalating risk.
Why it matters for Canada
Forests are more than an economic driver. They’re vital to Canada’s climate resiliency, biodiversity, and cultural identity. As wildfires grow more severe and global supply chains more uncertain, Canada needs regions that can lead with new approaches.
New Brunswick offers a unique combination of scale (big enough to matter, small enough to be agile), expertise, and collaboration. Its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean gives the province a special vantage point to study the effects of fire, hurricanes, and large-scale wind disturbances as climate change intensifies. With one of the highest proportions of private forest land in the country, New Brunswick also provides a rare laboratory for examining how policy, landowner engagement, and science intersect. Situated in the boreal-temperate ecotone, the province hosts some of Canada’s richest intact forests, with over 32 tree species. This distinctive mix, coupled with leadership in wildfire detection, early spruce budworm intervention, and sustainable management, is attracting attention far beyond its borders. New Brunswick is emerging as Canada’s global leader in forest innovation, with UNB providing education and expertise now and for the future.
