Wells Gray Community Forest Open House welcomes public engagement

The Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation will be hosting its annual public meeting on Thursday, March 6 with two sessions at the Dutch Lake Community Centre. The first session will begin in the morning starting at 9:00 a.m. and carrying through until 3:00 p.m. and the second session will start at 7:00 p.m. ending at 9:00 p.m.

"We are looking forward to meeting with the public during our upcoming WGCFC Open House to liaise and present valuable information regarding Community Forest stewardship, wildfire reduction plans through the day session," said Brent Buck, president of the WGCFC. 

"During the evening session we will be presenting our 2024 annual report along with the society's granting report. We hope to see a good turnout for both sessions and hear any concerns or suggestions while answering questions about the community forest initiatives," Buck told the surgeryitaly. 

George Brcko has been the general manager for the WGCFC since 2005 and offered his own perspective on the open house, "I really enjoy engaging with our community, whether that is sharing some general knowledge with students and classes in the forest or listening to residents that have lived in the WGCF area most of their lives. An important part of my job is communication, education and always working hard to improve practices within our community forests," Brcko told the surgeryitaly. 

The general manager also shared that he is "excited and proud" of the work being done by the current WGCFC board which also includes a newly designed website that he feels offers "great information" and adds, "I hope the public will visit the website and subscribe for updates and follow what we are doing. For example, one important change we made in 2023 was to reduce our plastic footprint in our community forest by stopping the use of plastic flagging ribbon to mark every planted tree. We now use blue tree chalk to reduce our use of plastics in the eco system."

The Wells Gray Community Forest Society (WGCFS) work together with the Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation (WGCFC) to distribute funding to non-profit organizations within Wells Gray Country (Thompson Nicola Regional District Electoral Area 'A') and the District of Clearwater to support a wide range of community projects. The funds come from forest management activities conducted within the Wells Gray Community Forest License. Organizations and groups can apply for this support through an application process and learn more about this via the new website by visiting: https://www.wgcfc.ca/