Forest Enhancement Society planting 36 million trees in BC’s Interior

The Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) is set to start planting 36 million trees across the BC Interior.

Steve Kozuki, FESBC Executive Director says the trees are being planted to reforest the areas affected by the 2017 wildfires. “It was quite devastating,” Kozuki says, “working together with the provincial government and the office of the chief forester, we’re partnering to plant as many trees as we can as quickly as we can in order to maximize the recovery of the timber value for future generations, to help manage water, the meltwater, and heavy rainwater, to help promote wildlife habitat restoration, and most importantly to help sequester carbon. Planting these trees is going to help BC and Canada meet our climate change goals.”

Kozuki says each tree planted in the ground costs roughly one dollar, 50 cents for the seed and to grow it in a nursery, and 50 cents to actually plant the seed. He says the provincial government is funding the project, with the federal government chipping in because of the carbon benefit.

The tree planting is going to start any day now, but Kozuki says the process started three years ago. “There’s forest professionals and technicians that go out and look at areas and determine if they need to be planted and if so, with what kind of trees. Then the seed procured, and the orders are put into the greenhouses to grow the trees. Sometimes the land needs to be prepared. Typically it takes three years.”

Kozuki says there was a concern with tree planting and COVID-19 a year ago, but there wasn’t a single case across BC  as a result of tree planting, and the FESBC hopes there aren’t any this year.