Important new publications in the online Susan Bond Memorial Library for 2025

March 8th, 2026

As part of the mandates of the Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resource Society (Trench Society) and Rocky Mountain Trench Ecosystem Restoration Program (RMTERP) the Susan Bond Memorial Library must be maintained and periodically updated with new reports relevant to the mandate of both organisations. We do try to locate and curate reports maps and documents that pertain to the natural resources of the East Kootenay. After feedback from some of our users, the RMTERP will be updating this resource once a year and will be keeping the new reports in their own annual folder in the library directory for at least 6 months for ease of review. So, if you want to just check out the 2025 additions sign into the memorial library and check the folder “2025 Susan Bond Library addition”. This was a very busy year we have 179 new titles; some highlights are:

1.     It was noted recently that one of the seminal reports that lead to the creation of the Ecosystem Restoration program was missing from the library. This year we add the Final Report of the East Kootenay Agriculture Wildlife Technical Advisory Committee written in 1998 by Don Gayton and Maurice Hansen. It is about 14 individual reports collated into a scientific basis for tree thinning in the valley. For two of its most important findings look at see page 69 for the first estimation of forest ingrowth into open range units. On page 70 this is estimate of forage production under mature tree canopies set at Open Range, Treed Grassland, Open Forest and Closed Forest stocking levels. Look for the report the under East Kootenay Plans ER or otherwise/ Archive ER plans folder

2.     In the current crisis in the forest industry there is an interest in new types of forest products from non sawlog material. The Biofuels folder has been reworked, and new large report can serve as a primer to some of the new product in the Biochar folder, Mobile Biochar Production by Flame Carbonization: Reducing Wildfire Risk and Improving Forest Resilience 109 page report produced by the US Forest Service. Under the Biofuels/biofuel volume estimates FP Innovations of Canada has given us 3 reports estimating biomass currently being unutilised at landings and roadside in three different Timber Supply Areas. See for example CRANBROOK TIMBER SUPPLY AREA BIOMASS AVAILABILITY ESTIMATION. Cranbrook TSA is expected to produce waste 18 oven dried tonnes biomass/ hectare, Invermere TSA produces 30.6 oven dried tonne/hectare, Kootenay Lake TSA 26.6 tonnes/hectare. Invermere and Cranbrook would produce an annual volume of 102,000 oven dried tonnes per year. The estimates are from 2020 and 2021 when the Trench had 4 functioning sawmills; the cut has been reduced with only two surviving sawmills. Look under folder Biofuels/biofuel volume estimates

3.     In the Fire Regime and Science/ Landscape Fire Mgt-planning folder there are several interesting reports. Of interest a couple of policy proposals put forward by Polis, a think tank based out of the University of Victoria. The have a water stewardship group and a Wildfire Resilience Project. Two recent publications in the Learning to Live with Fire series:

a.     Beneficial Fire in B.C. — An Exploration of How Fire Can Contribute to Wildfire Resilience. This is a good policy overview of how Beneficial fire ca be prescribed burns, cultural burns or carefully managed wildfire; the idea is that fire can be of benefit to the ecology of a landscape. T deals with implementation, value to environment and risk to community. It has been presented by the author Kevin Kreise as an online webinar from the Bulkley valley Research Centre.

b.     Brandes et al 2026 Wildfire Resilience and a Cross-Government Approach in British Columbia University of Victoria’s POLIS Wildfire Resilience Project — Ember Insights Series The authors are Ex government managers, and they outline how all agencies involved in wildfire management should form joint planning. The paper shows examples how government agencies have worked together with nongovernment actors. Som examples are current, but it shows how it is possible.

4.     In the Fire Regime and Science/ Landscape Fire Mgt-planning folder a good paper is Kuntzemann et al 2025 Climate, topography, or fuels? Top-down versus bottom-up controls on fire refugia across British Columbia, Canada. In planning for retained forest cover such as Ungulate Winter Range or Old Growth Management areas, it would be best that the reserved forests be located in areas less likely to burn; north aspects protected gullies. It is of interest in the authors of this paper were in discussion with the First Nation Emergency Services Society who are currently creating, along with the Ecosystem Restoration program, a similar mosaic map of warm treatment areas and reserved cooler units.

5.     There are several interesting papers on the Effectiveness of Fuel treatments, look under Fuel Treatment/ Fuel Effectiveness Reports.  A new topic this year was how well harvesting can serve as fuel mitigation. One study from University of BC suggests, based on fire modelling, that thinning helps with ground fire, but more rigorous thinning and prescribed burning is needed to reduce crown fire. Paper is Rutherford et al 2025 Short-term impacts of operational fuel treatments on modelled fire behaviour and effects in seasonally dry forests of British Columbia, Canada. The Forest Practices Board also examined this issue (FPB 2025 SPECIAL INVESTIGATION HELP OR HINDER? Aligning Forestry Practices with Wildfire Risk Reduction) took a more legalistic policy approach to this same question. It points to a low level of implementation of fuel hazard assessments, slow implementation and a lack of clear objectives.

6.     Of interest to citizens involved in Timber Supply reviews is a new paper: Girardin et al 2025. Spatially detailed tree-ring analysis exposes widespread forest growth decline throughout Canada, generally it shows that trees not growing as well as in the past and possibly not as well as growth models, likely a climate change effect. Find it under Forest Harvesting/ inventory and Forest Harvesting/ Silviculture

7.     There is a new folder in Forest Harvesting called silviculture, just to deal with the treatment of forests after establishment. There is an interesting paper on Aspen management on their regeneration after wildfire (Dawe 2025, Sexual and vegetative recruitment of trembling aspen following a high-severity boreal wildfire). Select harvest is a subject of great interest especially for fire resilience and water regime in community watersheds. A new paper shows select harvest has a great beneficial effect for both. Lumbrazo et al 2026 Can we maximize snow storage through fire-resilient forest treatments? Insights from experimental forest treatments in the Eastern Cascades, WA, USA. Also note the Silviculture Systems manual for BC 2025 is also in this folder, it has good basic information on this issue.

8.     Under Species at risk folder/ Whitebark pine there are two very interesting papers on this species.

a.      Our local White bark pine expert Randy moody has produced a valuable new report bin 2021 but just added to the library Best Management Practices for Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicala) it covers protection on harvest, cone collection pruning, planting and genetic trials for the species.

b.     A new fire Regime description by K Hoffman 2025 Historical fire regimes in white bark pine ecosystems of west-central British Columbia. This report is very surprising in that it highlights low severity fire on an 8-year fire return period with likely First Nation Fire Stewardship practices. Not at all what was expected at this high elevation.

9.     Of great interest to our local conservation efforts are two reports by Evan Mackenie 2025 Okanogan Nation Alliance. Both are titled Conservation, Restoration and Stewardship of Low Elevation Brushland (Gb), Grassland (Gg) and Dry Forest Ecosystems in the West Kootenay Region one report is a background information document and a field guide. These ecosystems are fire maintained ecosystems, specially shrublands, but the species composition is very different from the grasslands and few shrublands. Management called for shows very similar issues to the East Kootenays; these ecosystems are listed in the Conservation Data Centre as rare ecosystems. Both reports are in the Species at risk/ Plant Species folder

10.  The Grass Seeding folder now has the recently updated in BC Ministry of Forests Range Branch Seeding manual in the Grass Seeding policy subfolder.

If you have any comments or questions about the library, please contact: 

                              Randy Harris RPF

RMTERP Outreach Coordinator

admin@trench-er.com

If you have any questions regarding the Ecosystem Restoration Program, please contact:

Marc Trudeau, Executive Director

                              Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society

                              Phone: 250-427-1138

                             Email: marc@trench-society.com