The cutting edge of forest inventory: consultants go high-tech on compiling wood inventory data.

AuthorRoss, Ian
PositionForestry

A New Liskeard-headquartered forest management company is close to commercializing a proprietary remote sensing technology to calculate forest inventories.

First Resource Management Group has developed a flagship timber inventory analysis and management tool, SkyForest, and is conducting various trials this year with a number of prospective clients across Canada.

The 20-employee forestry consultancy, and now tech firm, aims j to deliver digital maps to forestry clients to make better and more cost effective decisions in sourcing wood.

"There are always little tweaks to do but we're there, we're patenting it and we think we're off the races," said company CEO-chairman Philip Green.

The technology has caught the eye of industry legend Frank Dottori, CEO of White River Forest Products, who arranged their biggest trial to date. On the White River Forest, First Management produced a digital terrain model on a 612,000-hectare management unit within 16 days.

"And we didn't need to send anybody on the ground or an aircraft up in the air. That's phenomenal when think about it," said Green.

The terrain model shows land elevation, where the volume of wood is the highest, classifies the species, and indicates tree heights.

When First Resource was established in early 2010, its core group of employees was drawn from the Timiskaming Forest Alliance, who've been managing the area forests for 20 years.

The company primarily oversees the Timiskaming and Abitibi River forests on behalf of the licence holders.

The idea for SkyForest was incubated from listening to clients, who were dissatisfied with the forest resource inventory (FRI) and the outdated information provided for management units.

Companies need accurate and more timely information, and Green believes SkyForest checks off all the boxes.

Using airborne photographic and satellite imagery that's freely available from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the various space agencies, with SkyForest they can produce an evaluation of an entire management unit within two or three weeks.

"It can be used to speed up the process in developing an FRI," said Green.

"Right now, it's taking up to 10 years to get an FRI after the acquisition of the imagery. So we wanted something that could be done very quickly."

The company worked hand-in-hand with University of Quebec-Montreal professor Benoit St.Onge, a renowned remote sensing and LiDAR...

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