Research was initiated by the J.D. Irving, Limited (JDI) Forest Research Advisory Committee to understand the role of planted stands under different management regimes as habitat for small mammals, beetles, songbirds, plants, mosses and lichens. There was specific focus on organisms known to require dead trees and coarse woody debris on the forest floor. This was established as a long-term monitoring study and will serve to provide information on value of planted stands from a habitat perspective which is important for JDI to assess ecological sustainability at the landscape level.

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J.D. Irving, Limited (JDI) has partnered with Natural Resources Canada, Carleton University, and Environment and Climate Change Canada on a 5- year songbird habitat research project on JDI land in Northern New Brunswick. Researchers are collecting songbird data with auto-acoustic recording devices. During the breeding season in May and June of 2016, 323 sites were monitored across 17 different forest types and age classes. The recordings are being analyzed by bird experts or in some cases by sound recognition software to determine songbirds present at specific GPS locations. Researchers also have access to JDI’s enhanced, high resolution mapping of the entire forest study area for a range of forest structure metrics generated through LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology. The songbird data is then used along with the forest structure metrics at the location as well as in the surrounding forest area to build habitat models for individual species. Model results can then be projected across the entire landscape.

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Understanding forest dynamics, succession, and habitat relationships under differing levels of silviculture is the basis of forest management planning. The Acadian forest is comprised of a complex mix of forest communities, including mixedwood stands where boreal softwood and southern hardwoods commingle. This forest is ecologically unique in North America and economically important in northeast North America. The forest provides many ecological services, is biologically diverse, and is the raw material source for the forest industry - a mainstay of the Maritime economy. The succession dynamics of this ecosystem are strongly influenced by natural disturbances, and by a long history of harvest and protection from fire and insects.

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Looking up for a raptor's nest or looking down for a rare plant - JDI Naturalist, Kelly Honeyman, talks about the extensive environmental training programs that the company conducts each year for over 140 foresters and contractors who work in JDI Woodlands operations.

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J.D. Irving, Limited is currently the only forestry company in Atlantic Canada that shares data about species and ecological communities of conservation concern to the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre (CDC) in Sackville, New Brunswick.

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