JD Irving: Top Seven Reasons We’re Celebrating National Forest Week

The theme of this year’s National Forest Week 2017 is Our Stories, Our Future. We value the people, the partnerships and the innovation that goes into sustainable forest management. We think these stories are worth celebrating!

1. It’s a Milestone Year: 60 Years of Tree Planting
Since 1957 we have planted nearly 1 billion trees. It is a big part of why we grow more than we harvest every year.

We cannot celebrate this 60-year milestone without celebrating the tree planters who have made it happen.

One way we thank our student tree planters is to send them back to college or university with a scholarship at the end of the planting season. The 2017 season saw 58 student tree planters awarded a total of $47,250 in scholarships. To date, $454,500 has been awarded to full-time students who have planted trees across JDI-owned or managed lands.

2. Proud to Conserve Nature’s Beauty with Exceptional Partners
Unique Areas: Our voluntary and award-winning Unique Areas program has grown from 29 sites in the 1980’s to over 1 300 sites to date on the lands we own and manage in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Maine. We value the partnerships we have with many environmental and community groups as well as local universities to help identify, conserve and study these special places which include aesthetics, wildlife, historic sites and more. https://irvingwoodlands.com/jdi-woodlands-healthy-forest-conservation.aspx

Saving Salmon: When communities, researchers, and industry can partner on environmental projects, there is potential for great results. That’s exactly the intent of CAST (Collaboration for Atlantic Salmon Tomorrow). Today 11 scientists are underway with 4 projects to count, save and strengthen the future of wild Atlantic salmon. University of New Brunswick researchers are leading the way using amazing technology. The Miramichi Salmon Association, Cooke Aquaculture, and Canadian Rivers Institute, JDI as well as provincial and federal government make up the rest of the CAST.

Ducks Unlimited: Our work to protect wildlife habitat and support research extends to wetlands. We have a 36-year partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) on almost 1,250 acres of wetland on JDI properties. The agreement covers a total of 34 conservation sites in both in New Brunswick (29) and Nova Scotia (5). While DUC works with 2,000 private landowners in Atlantic Canada, JDI has more projects and wetland area under agreement with DUC than any other private landowner.

Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI®): We care about our forests – but don’t take our word for it; all forest land owned or managed by J. D. Irving, Limited is Third Party Certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative program Forest Management Standard – the largest certification standard in North America. This week SFI awarded our Woodlands team their Conservation Award for Canada and North America.

The third party forest certification audits in 2016 found we had zero non-compliances based on 145 indicators (environmental, social and economic) measured over 5 years. View the latest report: https://irvingwoodlands.com/jdi-woodlands-report-cards-sfi.aspx
more at:  https://www.jdirving.com/BlogPage.aspx?id=4565&blogid=74

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