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OFRI's research staff develop new scientific knowledge to support the sustainable management of Ontario's forests. They investigate how Ontario's trees and forests grow and change due to human activities and natural disturbances. Their research results help to provide a sound scientific foundation for Ontario's forest management policies, planning, and practices and help to sustain all forest values: timber production, wildlife habitat, recreation, biodiversity, and more.
OFRI has about 50 staff, including research scientists, science specialists, statisticians, technicians, technology transfer specialists, managers, and administrative staff. Staff expertise and projects relate to a variety of forestry disciplines, such as ecology, silviculture, soils and hydrology, biochemistry, pathology, physiology, genetics, modelling, remote sensing, landscape ecology, non-timber forest products, and climate change, and are focused at a range of scales, from individual seedlings and trees to forest stands to the landscape of northern Ontario.
Research results are validated through publication in peer-reviewed scientific journal articles. Staff transfer these result to those in government and forest industry who oversee and manage Ontario's forests, via workshops, conference presentations, training sessions, field tours, newsletters, research reports, software tools, and this website.
OFRI also houses about 50 staff from other MNR units: Who's at OFRI besides forest research?
About OFRI's partners ...
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OFRI staff are very successful at forming productive research partnerships with other organizations. Until the mid-1990s, almost all of OFRI's research was funded by MNR; now partnerships with other organizations contribute significantly to OFRI's research funding.
OFRI staff are making more than just research contributions to these partnerships: They helped design the Canadian Ecology Centre Forestry-Research Partnership, a collaboration among MNR, Tembec and the Canadian Forest Service; and OFRI scientists working with the Upper Lakes Environmental Research Network participated actively in writing successful grant proposals for more than $3 million, supporting not only research but also employment and training of up-and-coming natural resources professionals.
OFRI's partners include:
- Science staff in MNR's science and information units in Thunder Bay, South Porcupine, and North Bay/London/Kemptville and at MNR's Centre for Northern Forest Ecosystem Research (CNFER)
- Forest planners and policymakers with MNR's Forests Branch (Ontario’s Forests website)
- MNR district office staff
- Ontario's forest industry
- Researchers at the Canadian Forest Service's Great Lakes Forestry Centre
- Universities (such as Toronto, Guelph, Lakehead, and Algoma) and colleges (such as Sault College and Collège Boréal)
- Canadian Ecology Centre-Forestry Research Partnership
- Forest Co-op
- Sustainable Forest Management Network
- Lake Abitibi and Eastern Ontario model forests
- science enterprise Algoma
About OFRI's location and facilities ...
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OFRI is in an ideal location for forest research. The city of Sault Ste. Marie lies in the transition zone between the boreal and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest regions and has one of the highest concentrations of forest researchers in North America. OFRI's research facilities include:
- A 9,000-square-metre research building, with state-of-the-art growth chambers and growth rooms; several types of greenhouses; and inorganic chemical, biochemical, pathology, and geographic information system laboratories
- A 95-hectare arboretum, located just outside Sault Ste. Marie
- Hundreds of research plots in forests across Ontario
