David Suzuki is scheduled to speak in Prince George BC at the House of Ancestors Saturday October 7th. He’ll be speaking of his unorthodox life journey and relationship with ecology and conservation. The aim is raise funds for Conservation North, a local group focused on environmental preservation and monitoring.

Speaking with CFUR from the road is representative and founding partner, Michelle Connolly.

Although a lot of ecology is threatened, Connolly emphasizes, “We need to be extracting from the parts of the landscape that have already been industrially logged and not touching natural forests anymore.”

Part of Conservation North’s efforts have gone to combining existing data with their own analysis and surveys, leading to their Seeing Red interactive map which highlights activity in the regions forest.

Counter to the misconception that Conservation North is against all development of forestry products, a part of the organization’s publicly stated goals is a just transition away from the industrial harvest of primary forest and towards second-growth forestry. Connolly states, “If a local community wants to go into a previously industrially managed forest and extract from there and turn those things into say mass timber products, pulp, pellets, other products, we wouldn’t comment on that. That’s the domain of professional forestry. That’s where they can probably do some creative things. We don’t really comment on where things go from those types of industrially managed forests.”

In a world where there are many environmental challenges, Conservation North focuses its work on the protection for remaining primary forests in the Inland and Boreal Rainforests.

You can catch David Suzuki speak in Prince George BC at the House of Ancestors Saturday October 7th, tickets at EventBrite or in-person at Books &Co.

Founder of local ecological group Conservation North, Michelle Connolly. Photo Credit - Michelle Connolly