Forestry Chronicle Special Issue on Natural Resources Management Celebrating 60 Years of Lakehead University

As Lakehead University celebrates its 60th anniversary in the 2025-2026 academic year, the Faculty of Natural Resources Management is proud to mark this milestone with a special issue of The Forestry Chronicle. Featuring 11 articles, the publication highlights the Faculty’s rich history, innovative academic programs, and impactful research contributions.

The Faculty of Natural Resources Management traces its roots to one of Lakehead University’s founding programs, evolving from a two-year forestry diploma established in 1948 into a degree-granting faculty with its first graduating class in 1973.

The Faculty has evolved from a traditional forestry school into a globally connected centre for forestry and environmental education, offering flagship undergraduate programs in Forestry (HBScF) and Environmental Management (HBScEM) that emphasize experiential learning through extensive use of research forests such as the Jack Haggerty Forest and Hogarth Plantation. A distinguishing feature of these programs is the mandatory integration of Indigenous perspective.

At the graduate level, the Faculty offers thesis-based MScF, course-based Master’s, and PhD programs that attract students from around the world. Its international reach is strengthened through partnerships in Ghana, Ecuador, China, the Republic of Korea, and Europe, including collaborative dual-degree programs and the newly funded FORSCALE graduate training initiative with the University of Freiburg, Germany.

The teaching and research showcased in this issue reflect the Faculty’s position at the forefront of natural resources sciences, spanning forest genetics; forest entomology; geomatics, remote sensing, wildfire, wildlife conservation, and nanotechnology and biorefining.

The Faculty has been celebrating Lakehead University’s 60th anniversary through a series of initiatives, including the Tree Planting Ceremony and Awards, the NRM–CIF Speaker Series, the publication of the faculty magazine The Understory, and the release of this Special Issue of The Forestry Chronicle.

The full publication is available here: https://pubs.cif-ifc.org/toc/tfc/current