WFCA organizes the annual conference around three themes: safety, policy and association strategy. Here’s a look at the safety program lineup for sessions and workshops on Wednesday and Thursday (30, 31 Jan. 2019)
Total Physiotherapy’s Mike McAlanon and Jared Lalek are back by popular demand presenting new injury reduction videos and holding practical training workshops.
Dogs in the Forestry Workplace: Are They Nuisances or Protection? This will be a workshop facilitated by Sylvia Fenwick Wilson and Forestry Safety Advocate Jordan Tesluk.
Marine Safety: Water has too often proven a fatal hazard. How are we reducing the risk of drowning among forestry workers? WFCA rep. Timo Scheiber will report on his work with the Marine Forestry Safety Advisory Group.
Dealing with Workplace Harassment: BC Safe Forestry Program chair Robin McCullough will provide guidance on handling complaints, managing situations and supporting victims in this practical workshop.
Improving Training and Certification in Contract Wildfire Suppression: This workshop will outline the structure and operating principles of an accountable certification system and how it would better train and qualify fire line supervisors, instructors and workers. Leader to be announced.
Remove Plastics from Planting
Did we just use the word boustrophedon? It means to move (write, plough etc.) left to right, then right to left in alternating lines. That’s how planters often work to fill in an area with seedlings.
To keep track they tag their trees with bright plastic flagging. The practice has been around for decades and just how many tons of plastic tree planting has left on the landscape is not a figure we would want to publish if we knew it.
Resistant to bio-degrading quickly, plastic bits persist on the landscape for years. Besides littering, it’s shown up in the guts of calves and other ungulate browsers and grazers.
Cattlemen and wildlife biologists have been joined by a citizen’s group in recent appeals to our government to reduce the use of plastic flagging in forestry.
Alternative fabrics that could replace plastics come at a higher cost. Finding just how high is one of the tasks of a contractor working group focusing on the topic.
As published previously in the RoundUpDate the WFCA has begun to look for bio-degradable materials for flagging and seedling packaging. WFCA has only had preliminary talks with MFLNRORD and BCTS, but given the widespread trend to discourage single-use plastics, we seem to be on track for a significant reduction in their use, if not their elimination, for planting projects.
The WFCA plastics reduction working group is developing a strategy to be presented at next year’s WFCA 2019 annual conference. As part of that process we are soliciting advice and comments from licensee foresters, consultant foresters, planting contractors and seedling producers to help reduce single-use plastics in forestry.
Reprinted with permission
Why Report Incidents and Close Calls? Gathering and analyzing safety incidents, including close calls’ is critical to reducing injuries for individual firms and the sector as a whole. Yet there are obstacles that discourage good reporting. EHS Analytics and Jordan Tesluk led this session.
Helicopter Emergency Medical Services Proposed Pilot Update: WFCA HEMS pilot project leader Chris Akehurst along with Technical Emergency Advanced Aero Medical’s Miles Randall will frame the benefits and costs of having a robust ERP strategy in remote locations.
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM