Canadian Institute of Forestry

Published purpose

This 29-month project will support a feminist response and recovery from the current impacts of COVID-19, through systemic change. Canadian Institute of Forestry (CIF) will achieve this by developing a governance structure through engaging and establishing working partnerships; building the evidence base through data collection on underrepresented groups in greater depth by region; fostering an inclusive culture by developing and providing training and skills development on improving the workplace culture; and repositioning the forest sector with communications strategies and progress tracking. At the end of the project, the organization will have contributed to addressing systemic barriers by advancing inclusive policies and practices, encouraging more equitable and effective sharing of resources, and increasing networks and collaboration to accelerate systemic change to support women’s equality. CIF will also achieve this by supporting positive distribution of authority, voices, and decision-making power; and addressing persistent harmful gender norms and attitudes. This project seeks to scale up a past successful project, Gender Equity in the Forest Sector National Action Plan, in accelerating progress on women’s equality and the equality of other under-represented groups in all employment categories in Canada’s forest sector. In this scale up, the project will increase networks and collaboration by leveraging existing National Steering Committee partnerships and build new regional committees in Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairies and Pacific regions across the forest sector supply chain to provide strategic governance of the project.