BSMI's Rasoul Yousefpour Presents at Annual Meeting of the Federation of Nova Scotia Woodland Owners
In October 2025, Professor Rasoul Yousefpour, the Bioeconomy and Sustainable Materials Institute lead, and Kira Wang, a master's student in the University of Toronto’s Forest Conservation program, travelled to Stellarton, Nova Scotia for the Federation of Nova Scotia Woodland Owners (FNSWO) 25th Annual General Meeting.
The FNSWO is a non-profit organization representing private woodland owners across the province; almost 70% of Nova Scotia’s 4.2 million hectares of forested land is privately owned. The FNSWO mission is to support sustainable forest management through education, policy engagement, and collaboration between landowners, industry, and government.
Professor Yousefour delivered the event keynote address about creating an innovative and resilient Canadian bioeconomy, including a discussion of three of his major initiatives at the University of Toronto: The European eco2adapt project, the Mass Timber Institute, and the newly launched Bioeconomy and Sustainable Materials Institute (BSMI).
Professor Yousefpour’s talk connected international research on forest risk management and insurance with Canadian forest policy and bioeconomy innovation. Through eco2adapt, Yousefpour’s team is exploring how insurance mechanisms and adaptive forest management can strengthen resilience to natural disturbances such as wildfire, storms, and pest outbreaks. The discussion also highlighted how research on sustainable materials and mass timber can contribute to a circular, low-carbon forest-based economy in Canada.
Yousefpour and Wang’s attendance of the event, represents an exciting opportunity to support local forest management and woodland owners as well as link Canadian and European expertise on forest resilience and sustainable development.
The visit also created valuable connections with Nova scotia’s woodland owners, who expressed strong interest in participating in the Canadian forest insurance survey led by the University of Toronto.