Master Levi Robson
Project Title: What is the ‘public interest?’ How forest professionals interpret organizational visions in British Columbia
Graduation year: 2024
Levi’s research focused on the ‘public interest’ in the context of BC’s Forest Sector. Provincial legislation (specifically the Professional Governance Act) requires that the ‘public interest’ be upheld and protected in professional practice. What’s interesting is that the ‘public interest’ is never defined in provincial policy or legislation, leaving resource professionals to interpret it themselves. So, he explored how forest professionals interpret the ‘public interest,’ and how does that interpretation affect what happens on the ground.
Here’s a song from my awesome band:
Dr. René Reyes
René Reyes is a researcher in the Instituto Forestal of Chile (www.infor.cl), and associate researcher at both the Institute of Agrarian Economy of the Universidad Austral de Chile and the Energy Resources, Development and Environment Lab (ERDELab) of UBC-Forestry. Dr. Reyes is a Forest Engineer (1992-1997 Universidad de Chile), and also holds a Master of Science from the Universidad Austral de Chile (2004-2005). He performed his Doctorate at the University of British Columbia between 2010 and 2017, and his advisor was the professor Harry Nelson. He co-created the National Firewood Certification System in Chile, between 2003 and 2010, in order to regulate the firewood market to reduce forest degradation and air pollution. René was the Executive Director of the Association of Foresters for the Conservation of Native Forests, and is currently in charge of the socioeconomic component of the National Forest Inventory.
Research Keywords: forest degradation, woodfuel, decision making, energy transition, forest transition, forest policy, socioecology
Tim Hawkins
Tim did his master’s research in the Dragon Lab studying the evaluation and application of new scientific research in coho salmon hatchery management. This involved talking with First Nations, hatchery managers, and scientists to understand how new information and technologies are understood and used in a co-managed resource setting and how scientific knowledge interacts with Indigenous and local knowledge. He now works for West Coast Aquatic, a non-profit society based in Port Alberni, BC that promotes collaboration in natural resource management through process design, facilitation, and project management. He facilitates salmon management roundtables that bring together different governments and fishing groups to make decisions about fishing at a local and regional scale. Tim also does works with First Nations on forest land use planning, riparian forest management, knowledge communication, and GIS mapping as a consultant.
Dr. Dawit Guta
Dawit Guta is an Economist specializing in Energy, Resource and Environmental, and Development Economics with a research focus on the interface of the energy transition, socioeconomics, and environment. His research particularly emphasizes the analysis of energy transition and household behavior in Low-Middle Income Countries and the economic, social, institutional, technology, and policy dimensions of these. Since 2020 he has been a postdoc researcher at the Department of Forest Resource Management of the University of British Colombia. He also teaches an undergraduate course on Carbon and Energy Economics. During 2016-2020, he served as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Economics at Addis Ababa University (AAU). He also did his postdoc research at the University of Bonn (UB). He graduated with BA and MSc degrees in Economics from AAU and holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from UB. He has taken part in numerous interdisciplinary research projects such as the water-energy-food nexus, bioenergy, bioeconomy and food security, and others.
Evan Powell
Evan Powell is a Senior Policy Analyst in Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service. Evan leads the Forest Service’s strategic policy advice on forestry transformation. He manages key industry and Māori partnerships, projects, and research. His main focus areas include species diversification, improving biomass supply, automation/ digitisation in forest operations, and coordinating small woodlot owners to create supply certainty. Evan was an RPF forester in British Columbia before moving to New Zealand- his forestry experience provides a foundation of practical field-based knowledge when providing government advice.
Dr. Hugh Scorah
Hugh sometimes wears masks of tech startup employee, energy market quant and trader, ranch hand, agricultural and forestry business management consultant. Wrote a dissertation on economics of wildfire and consequences of extreme value risk distributions for policy making. Mostly interested in the traditional role of spiritual leadership in resource management and decision making.
Dr. Andrea Lyall
Andrea is using indigenous and transformative methodologies to frame culturally relevant protocols and forest governance structure that address and embrace KHFN’s relationship to the forests as a Kwakwaka’wakw Nation. the research hopes to express the voices of an Indigenous People in order to gain environmental sustainability at the homeland-level and sometimes finding instances for wider applicability. Her research had the KHFN and its members engage in a participatory research that would use their indigenous knowledge systems to develop a definition of sustainable forest management that respects the land and improves economic development for KHFN.