25-06-23
Reading time - Temps de lecture: 4 minutes
What are the assumptions behind my research questions? Who could my research potentially benefit or harm? How can I frame my research when communicating it to others? In a world without deadlines, I could spend much more time on these questions. However, my short two-year master’s program necessitates that the scope of my project remains focused and narrow, which on occasion gives me a sinking feeling that I have my head in the sand. My project is focused on change over time within a single forest, and although I value in the conservationist lens that guides my research, it is just one of the many perspectives that inform human engagement with forests. My LEADS internship with the Québec government’s Direction de la recherche forestière (DRF, ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts) gave me an opportunity to take a much-needed glimpse of my research field through a different lens.
In many ways, resource extraction and conservation are fundamentally at odds (ex. Yemshanov et al., 2025) but that’s not to say we can’t take steps to live in reciprocity with ecosystems that we rely on for resources. In the DRF, huge efforts are invested in developing and testing management practices that maintain timber production without compromising the diversity and resilience of commercial forests. Émilie Champagne, a researcher with the DRF who kindly accepted to supervise me for my six-week internship, exemplifies this search for win-win solutions in a recent paper (Champagne et al., 2023). Along with several colleagues, she provides evidence in favour of the argument that timber production and tree diversity are not fundamentally at odds. My internship followed with this theme, and I spent six weeks learning to use analytical tools to test how tree growth and survival in commercial stands are influenced by cuts that select for specific species. Although the forest I’m studying for my master’s differs in multiple ecologically important ways to the experimental plots of my internship, the research goals in both cases are grounded in detecting trends over time. Thanks to these similarities, my internship was a truly helpful primer on the methods that will serve me throughout my degree and beyond.
At the DRF, the love that every researcher has for forests couldn’t have been more apparent. I had the chance to witness this firsthand on my two-day visit to Québec city, where people took time out of their busy schedules to give feedback on my analyses. Their excitement to discuss (and debate) ecosystem processes was palpable! I happened to turn up in perfect timing to tag along for a lunch of hot dogs and tire sur neige. Couldn’t have asked for a more refreshing way to get to know people after a three-hour drive from Montréal.
Throughout my work at the DRF, one detail I picked up on was the investment in the long term. Because investors primarily focus on short-term returns, diverse forests can appear less desirable than monocultures. However, if we take the time to understand the mechanisms that have facilitated thousands of years of forests’ resilience and adaptation, we can adapt our harvesting practices to mimic natural disturbances and hopefully promote a future in which our descendants can benefit from forests in all the ways we do today.
In a year of significant changes to forest management policies across Québec (Yanez-Leyton, 2025), it is an ideal time to remind myself of the citizens, governments, researchers, and industries with personal stakes in the future of forests. As a young researcher, it can be easy to forget that there are diverse and often competing interests that motivate the research questions we ask, and my foray into governmental research has left me with a deeper understanding of a few of the stakeholders in Canadian forests. Thanks to Émilie for supervising me, and to LEADS for facilitating the experience!
Summary: I completed a six-week internship with the Direction de la recherche forestière (DRF, ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts), gaining some much-need exposure to analytical tools and new perspectives on forest research.
Keywords: Forest Research, Internship, Statistical Analyses, Governmental Research.
Micah Pavlidis is a second-year master’s student in Biology at McGill University, excited to explore the intersections between ecology, sustainability, social justice, and human health.
Bibliography
Champagne, E., Dumais, D., & Raymond, P. (2023). Precommercial thinning increased diameter growth while maintaining mixedwood stands composition, 15 years after treatment. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 53(4), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2022-0256
Yanez-Leyton, C. (2025, June 6). Why Quebec’s forestry reform is facing backlash from Indigenous groups, conservationists. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-bill-97-forestry-reform-1.7553714
Yemshanov, D., Simpson, M., Gauthier, S., Liu, N., Pedlar, J., Bernier, P., Boulanger, Y., Cyr, G., & Mathey, A.-H. (2025). Climate change, caribou protection, and Canada’s timber supply. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 55, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2024-0181