Shaping the future of forestry: University of Toronto and Saint Petersburg State University Join Remsoft Educational Partners Program

Remsoft welcomed the University of Toronto and Saint Petersburg State University as new Education Partners using Woodstock optimization technology for forest management teaching and research.

Remsoft is pleased to support forest management teaching and research at the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia and Canada’s University of Toronto through its Educational Partners Program (EPP).

The EPP program gives accredited educational institutions around the world access to Remsoft’s Woodstock Optimization Studio, an industry-standard platform used to achieve sustainable forest, land, and asset management.

Remsoft’s Woodstock technology is currently used for classroom teaching and international research studies by 20 education partners in 7 countries.

“Advancing the use of technology to improve forest management is one of our core values,” says Remsoft CEO Andrea Feunekes. “We’re excited to see our software being leveraged to educate the next generation of foresters and find solutions for real-world forestry challenges.”

At the University of Toronto, Remsoft software is being applied to examine the sustainability of Ontario’s growing mass timber industry.

Interest in mass timber, as an advanced new building material, is growing due to its eco-friendly attributes, durability, and ease of assembly. It could be a driving force in Ontario’s economic and development future while contributing to the climate change solution — if the supply can keep up with the demand.

Researchers at the Daniels Faculty’s Mass Timber Institute (MTI) are examining whether extra wood from two Crown Forest management units in central Ontario could be repurposed for mass timber.

The team is building timber harvest scheduling models with Woodstock to help determine how much sustainable and unallocated wood, if any, exists on those specific units once commitments to mills and shareholders have been met.

Emmett Snyder, MTI’s project manager, says the software will enable them to assess if the wood system is suitable for mass timber applications and whether opportunities exist for local economies.

“This is going to be a big and complicated modeling project,” says Snyder. “Without Woodstock, we would have to make some big assumptions ourselves, some which would be less realistic.”

Russia’s Saint Petersburg State University, which specializes in mathematical methods in forestry, wood logistics and processing, is using Remsoft software to expand students’ skillsets and improve forestry management practices.

With more than 20 per cent of the world’s forests concentrated in Russia, as well as the largest reserves of timber, the country is a significant player in the global market.

Saint Petersburg has identified a need to develop strategic forest plans that balance economic, environmental and social values in North-West Russia. The priorities include everything from creating sustainable mixed coniferous forest stands to developing an optimal forest road network for forest transport and fire protection.

Professor Ivan Bacherikov has been teaching Woodstock to students since the beginning of the year and he hopes to expand its use as part of a future IT application course for the forestry industry.

“Our research group has won several grants to study the forest road network,” says Bacherikov, “and Remsoft’s Woodstock optimization technology is being used to model our large dataset, Podporozye.”

More information on Remsoft’s Educational Partners Program, and how to become a partner is available at https://remsoft.com/educational-partners-program/.