The Galiano Conservancy Association (GCA), through the Restoring the Balance (RTB) initiative and in collaboration with Indigenous community partners, is working to strengthen local capacity for forest stewardship on Galiano Island. As part of our efforts to restore and enhance forested habitats, we are facilitating Certified Faller training for a local Indigenous forest worker. This intensive program will take place from mid-October through the end of November.
Since launching RTB — with guidance from Indigenous community members — we have been working to expand forest restoration work across the island. Through this process, we’ve identified a key barrier to success: the lack of locally available Certified Fallers. Although several skilled individuals and reputable businesses provide tree services on Galiano, no one currently holds the certification required to legally fell trees from the ground in a forestry application — an essential skill for implementing large-scale forest restoration plans.
Certified Faller status is a legal requirement for forestry workers in today’s increasingly professionalized regulatory environment. Yet accessing this specialized training remains extremely challenging in small rural communities like ours.
To address this gap and support long-term ecological and community resilience, the GCA has received a Capacity Grant from Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation to fund Certified Faller training for one Indigenous forest worker. This investment represents an important step toward building local capacity for safe, effective, and ecologically informed forest restoration as part of the ongoing Restoring the Balance initiative.
Part of the hands-on training will take place in the Community Forest through the GCA’s partnership with the Galiano Club. Like much of Galiano, the Community Forest includes dense Douglas-fir plantation stands that would benefit greatly from restoration thinning. Treatments will focus on increasing forest health and reducing wildfire risk in a 2.5-hectare area of young plantation. The restoration work will be partially funded through the recovery and sale of a portion of the thinned trees as firewood, in accordance with the timber harvest policies in the Community Forest Management Plan (Section 12.2).
The restoration / training will serve as a pilot project providing valuable insight into the efficiency, costs, and effectiveness of the work. A research team from UBC’s Centre for Wildfire Coexistence, led by Dr. Lori Daniels, has established a monitoring program to evaluate the effectiveness of the planned treatments. This information will help us refine and maximize the benefits of future forest thinning on Galiano.
If you’re walking in the Community Forest or live nearby, expect to hear occasional chainsaw activity over the next couple months. For safety reasons, the upper section of the “Wildfire Loop” trail will be temporarily closed (and clearly marked) while work is in progress.
To learn more about the Restoring the Balance initiative, visit www.galianoconservancy.ca/RTB
Laurie, Ryan and Haley Baines at Quadra Hill
