Dr. Michelle Gray
Dean & Associate Professor, Forestry and Environmental Management
New Brunswick is quietly becoming Canada’s global forestry innovation leader thanks to many decades of forestry expertise.
On a crisp autumn morning in New Brunswick, a drone hovers above a canopy of spruce and fir, transmitting real-time LiDAR scans that reveal the forest’s health down to the centimetre. On the ground, University of New Brunswick (UNB) researchers walk through permanent study plots, some having been monitored continuously for decades. In their labs, researchers merge field notes with satellite imagery, creating models that can predict how forests will respond to pests, fire, or climate change.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s happening right now in New Brunswick, a province where forestry has long been the backbone of the economy — and where a quiet revolution in digital forest innovation is underway. It also builds on more than a century of expertise: UNB’s Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management (ForEM) has been educating foresters since 1908.
A legacy industry meets new technology
Forestry has shaped New Brunswick for centuries, supporting tens of thousands of jobs from sawmills to paper plants to high-tech analytics firms. What’s changed is how the province manages its most important natural assets.
New Brunswick was the first jurisdiction in North America to comprehensively map its forests using LiDAR. Combined with one of Canada’s most extensive permanent sample-plot networks, this has produced an exceptionally rich foundation for research and management. The province also led early forest inventories: a province-wide aerial survey in the 1950s and GIS adoption in 1982 made New Brunswick a pioneer in forest management.
UNB’s ForEM is home to world-class researchers whose scientific contributions in silviculture, remote sensing, sustainable forest management, and forest health evaluation are helping shape how Canada protects its forests today.
Building the forest’s digital twin
The vision is bold: to create a “digital twin” of New Brunswick’s forests. By integrating LiDAR, satellite feeds, climate projections, and field data, such a platform can simulate scenarios — from invasive species to wildfire behaviour to harvesting impacts.
Building upon the success of the Healthy Forest Partnership’s Early Intervention Strategy (EIS), which has focused on protecting forests from the impacts of spruce budworm, researchers in New Brunswick are demonstrating how early detection and predictive analytics can protect forests from pests and diseases. The vision is to extend this model to other major disturbance risks, from wildfire detection and prevention to increasingly severe wind events such as hurricanes and large-scale windthrow. At the same time, climate change is reshaping the growth patterns of key tree species, with long-term implications for wood supply, carbon storage, and biodiversity. Together, these challenges underscore the urgency of developing data-driven tools that help anticipate change and guide sustainable management.
Forests are more than an economic driver. They’re vital to Canada’s climate resiliency, biodiversity, and cultural identity.
The implications are global. A digital twin of New Brunswick’s forests will guide sustainable management at home while providing a model for other regions and a foundation for Canadian companies to commercialize new tools in international markets.
An ecosystem of innovation
This work doesn’t happen in isolation. UNB researchers collaborate with federal scientists at the Canadian Forest Service, Indigenous knowledge holders, colleagues at l’Université de Moncton and New Brunswick Community College, and local firms like Remsoft, a global leader in forestry analytics. Large companies such as Acadian Timber and J.D. Irving Limited, are embracing digital methods that improve both environmental stewardship and economic performance.
Equally important is collaboration. Governments, universities, industry, and Indigenous communities are shaping Canada’s most advanced forest innovation ecosystem. With support from the McKenna Institute, UNB is positioning itself as a national hub where natural resource management and digital innovation meet.
The rising toll of wildfire
The urgency of this work has never been clearer. In recent years, wildfires have scorched millions of hectares across Canada, destroying homes, displacing families, and threatening wildlife and ecosystems. New Brunswick has not been immune — communities here have faced evacuations and habitat loss as fire seasons grow longer and more unpredictable. Across the country, from the boreal north to the coastal west, species that rely on intact forests are under mounting pressure. Protecting Canada’s forests is no longer just about timber supply or recreation — it’s about safeguarding biodiversity, reducing carbon emissions, and protecting communities from escalating risk.
Why it matters for Canada
Forests are more than an economic driver. They’re vital to Canada’s climate resiliency, biodiversity, and cultural identity. As wildfires grow more severe and global supply chains more uncertain, Canada needs regions that can lead with new approaches.
New Brunswick offers a unique combination of scale (big enough to matter, small enough to be agile), expertise, and collaboration. Its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean gives the province a special vantage point to study the effects of fire, hurricanes, and large-scale wind disturbances as climate change intensifies. With one of the highest proportions of private forest land in the country, New Brunswick also provides a rare laboratory for examining how policy, landowner engagement, and science intersect. Situated in the boreal-temperate ecotone, the province hosts some of Canada’s richest intact forests, with over 32 tree species. This distinctive mix, coupled with leadership in wildfire detection, early spruce budworm intervention, and sustainable management, is attracting attention far beyond its borders. New Brunswick is emerging as Canada’s global leader in forest innovation, with UNB providing education and expertise now and for the future.
To learn more visit unb.ca/fredericton/forestry/research.
