Jeff Schnurr along with Daimen Hardie, Gavin Hardie, Zachary Melanson, Elijah Manchester, and Dale Prest make up the main driving force behind Community Forests, which provides low-impact forestry services from tree planting, pre-commercial thinning of properties, and harvest assistance throughout the world. Conservation organizations, corporate partners, and private landowners turn to Community Forests Canada Inc. when they want to practice selective cutting and reforestation of their land.

“I saw a need to offer quality forestry services that provided value to landowners and restored forests in the process,” states Jeff Schnurr, Executive Director. “With an aging demographic here in New Brunswick, we saw a need to educate and grow the next generation of skilled forestry professionals. I’d also gained invaluable experience in seeing firsthand the reforestation process and how it is an important part of maintaining the planets viability as I’d worked a few years planting trees across Canada and in Europe and Africa.”

Schnurr also co-founded Community Forests International, an environmental charity that works both in Atlantic Canada and East Africa in 2008. He teamed up with fellow Canadian tree planters, Daimen Hardie, Zach Melanson and Estelle Drisdelle to create an organization capable of supporting the growing tree-planting movement in other parts of the world. Realizing that Tanzania efforts needed to be led by the locals, Community Forests International helped their partners establish Community Forests Pemba: a locally owned and operated organization that works to make their own change in their corner of the world. The two organizations work in partnership, as equals with a shared vision.

In 2009, communities in Pemba began to manage planted forests for fruit and timber. Even though the end goal of planting trees was for environmental conservation and restoration, community members also need to make a living while caring for their land and planet, just as woodlot owners here in New Brunswick do as well.

“By focusing on conservation as a way to generate incomes and provide livelihoods, Community Forests Canada Inc. works to restore forests and conserve land, but we do so in a way that also generates income. With a growing population globally and the extreme environmental challenges we face, such as climate change, we need to find a way to live lightly on the land while still providing the resources we all depend on. Here at Community Forests Canada Inc. we work hard to demonstrate that this is possible,” says Schnurr.

Yet starting such an enterprise isn’t easy, as Schnurr quickly found out back in 2009 when Community Forests Canada Inc. first launched in Atlantic Canada. “Not many traditional lenders wanted to back us,” he says. “Thankfully, the CBDC Westmorland Albert provided us with the financing to allow us to grow and expand our business through the purchase of equipment to get us up and running. We wouldn’t have been able to scale our operations without their support. Most likely we would have managed to become operational, but our trajectory would have been very, very different from the path we’re on today.”

So what’s ahead for this environment-conscious business? Community Forests Canada Inc. presently manages 6000 acres of land here in Southeastern New Brunswick and is looking to grow the business. “We are looking to provide quality forestry services to landowners, companies, and organizations that are looking for the long-term sustainability of our region’s rich forest recourses.”