J. D. Irving, Limited, along with seven other partners, have begun their second year of study with the Northeast Deer Research Partnership in the forests of New Brunswick and Maine.

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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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The Government of Canada and the Province of New Brunswick have partnered with the Collaboration for Atlantic Salmon Tomorrow (CAST) with a combined total of $4.7 million in research funding. CAST is a partnership of scientists, environmental groups, and industry participants. Our focus is saving wild Atlantic salmon before it's too late. Today we are working on six science projects on the Miramichi and Restigouche rivers. Our hope is that CAST will serve as a positive partnership model for Eastern Canada's wild Atlantic salmon rivers. J.D. Irving, Limited (JDI) is a founding partner and proud contributor to this multi-year effort to reverse the decline of wild Atlantic salmon populations. JDI is supporting one of the six CAST science projects currently underway: ARIS Sonar Population Tracking - new underwater sonar technology in Blackville, NB which accurately counts the number of returning salmon, providing real on-time data about salmon populations in the Miramichi.

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J.D. Irving, Limited is a forest products company with large forest land holdings in Eastern North America. The company has been active in tree improvement programs for many years for a number of conifer species. As well as using traditional seed orchards to produce improved seed, the company has also integrated vegetative propagation initially through rooted cuttings and then via somatic embryogenesis (SE), primarily of spruces. The objective of the SE program is to obtain tested varietal lines to be deployed in multi-varietal forestry plantations. Data are presented that show the genetic gain in height, diameter, and volume over that of the varietal test average at various selection intensities after a decade in a field test.

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A 1997 evaluation of the J.D. Irving, Limited (JDI) Black Brook Forest District (210,000 ha) in northern New Brunswick resulted in Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification (subsequently relinquished), subject to several conditions. The certification evaluation team urged the company to establish a Forest Research Advisory Committee (FRAC) to address uncertainty with respect to management of timber and non-timber values for large forest areas over a long time horizon. The company formed the JDI FRAC in 1998, initially chaired by Dr. Gordon Baskerville, and charged the group with identifying, advocating, and conducting research that would address significant knowledge gaps defined by the certification team, and empower the manager to manage for a broad range of values (Pelletier et al. 2002). Only objective measures of non-timber values will permit the company to manage the temporally/spatially dynamic pattern of stand types and conditions to ensure that all values would be available somewhere in the forest at all times.

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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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Adaptive Resolution Imaging Sonar

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For 15 years, the J.D. Irving, Limited (JDI) Forest Research Advisory Committee has been identifying, advocating, and conducting research in JDI's Black Brook Forest District in Northern New Brunswick. The research helps JDI better understand the various aspects of biodiversity as it relates to forest management so it can continually improve its practices. The group is a mix of JDI forest managers, researchers from UNB, the University of Moncton and the University of Maine, New Brunswick's Department of Natural Resources and the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences.

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J.D. Irving, Limited’s (JDI) tree improvement program started almost 40 years ago. The tree improvement process included selection of the best individuals in the region’s forests for qualities like rapid growth, tree straightness, and freedom from insect and disease problems. Traditional methods of grafting and planting these trees for quality seed production began at the Parkindale Seed Orchard.

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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 (JDI) and Dr. David Miller of Carleton University receive Synergy Award for Innovation. Greg Adams, Manager of Research and Development for J.D. Irving, Limited and Dr. David Miller will accept a Synergy Award for Innovation for their collaborative research on protecting trees from spruce budworm. Miller has studied the spruce budworm for over 25 years and has been working with J.D. Irving, Limited to reduce the impact risk of future epidemics. Miller and collaborators found that endophytes, fungi that occur naturally in the needles of conifers, are the key important to protecting improve tolerance of trees against to spruce budworm. Some endophytes produce natural toxins that slow the growth of the spruce budworm insect. J.D. Irving, Limited’s state-of-the-art laboratory in Sussex, N.B. will produce inoculum for up to 30 million seedlings per year from nurseries in eastern Canada.

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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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The protection of cold water refugia within aquatic systems requires the identification of thermal habitats in rivers. These refugia provide critical thermal habitats for brook trout and Atlantic salmon during periods of thermal stress, for example during summer high temperature events. This study aims to model these refugia using thermal infrared images collected during late July 2008 and 2009 for a reach of the Cains River, New Brunswick, Canada.

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Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon stock changes projected over 100 years were quantified for a company managing 2.2 Mha of forest in northeast North America. From 2010 to 2015, company forest operations, sawmills, and pulp/paper mills were forecast to contribute 21, 4, and 75%, respectively, of total emissions. Forest and products were forecast to result in an increasing cumulative net GHG (sequestration minus emissions) sink to 30.7 t CO2e ha1 at year 50. Determining the GHG mitigation potential of forest products requires inclusion of wood, paper, bioenergy, and manufacturing emissions and consideration of natural disturbances, leakage, and avoided emissions.

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