For a copy of Tom's CV or bio, CLICK HERE;

and see the links to About Westwind

and Diversity: Forests, People, Communities

Tom is a senior consulting ecologist focused on wildlife ecology and forest management. Tom works on the conservation of forest values through forest policy and management. Half of his work activity is forest auditing with the Independent Forest Audit (IFA) process in Ontario, and with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification process in the U.S. and Canada. He graduated from the University of Ottawa (1976 B.Sc. Biology) and the University of Guelph (1979 M.Sc. Zoology).

Tom has a great interest in working on “High Conservation Values”, and has authored ten HCV reports for forest companies in Ontario and Saskatchewan for both Boreal and Great Lakes Forest types. This concept helps in conserving special places in the world. He also completed an analysis of the Ontario HCV status for WWF Canada. Outreach to stakeholders and indigenous people is part of this process.

Tom has completed more than 25 Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) full assessments, and many annual audits, in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, and the states of New York and Pennsylvania and Minnesota using various FSC standards. He has been lead auditor for Rainforest Alliance on more than 10 assessments. As a forest ecologist he was part of the SmartWood audit team for Haliburton Forest, the first FSC certification in Canada. He also has done audit work for BVQI. On the other side of this, he works with some forest managers to prepare for FSC assessment.

He has been forest ecologist, consultation auditor and planning analyst on more than 30 Independent Forest Audits using the Ontario IFA protocol. In 2001, and again in 2006, he was part of a team of consultants that reviewed the government independent forest audit system for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR).

Tom has a strong public forest policy background. He has been a member of the Deputy Minister’s (OMNR) advisory committee, the Provincial Forest Policy Committee for 15 years. He was also on the Minister’s Advisory Committee for the Endangered Species Act (2007). Appointed by the Minister of Natural Resources as a member of the Comprehensive Forest Policy Panel (Nov 1991 to March 1993), the four person group co-authored Diversity: Forests, People, Communities, which was the framework for developing public forest policy in Ontario. This was adopted by OMNR and is still currently the policy framework for sustainable forests in Ontario. After broad public consultation, the principles and strategic directions in this document were adopted as Ontario government policy in 1994, and formed the basis for the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (1994).

Tom has been on various Boards of Directors since the 1980s. Currently, he is on the Board of Westwind Forest Stewardship and the Muskoka Conservancy. Westwind is a non-profit community based forest management company holding the Sustainable Forest License (SFL) for the French Severn Forest. This company is an example of a modern tenure model in Ontario. Tom was Westwind’s first Chair. With 400,000 ha of production forest, this SFL was the first large public forest FSC certified in Canada. As well, he is the vice president of the Muskoka Conservancy. It protects 36 properties throughout Muskoka which accounts for more than 971 ha and 11,000 m of sensitive shoreline. These properties are protected through direct ownership or through conservation easements. In this work he encourages a better understanding of forests through the media.

Tom enjoys giving talks and outreach in general. He assisted Forests Ontario with “Alternative Approaches to Afforestation”. For Forest Ontario, he also gave the key note address at their annual meeting in 2014, entitled “Community Forests: Winning the Cup”. He was invited by the Ontario Biodiversity Council to speak at the May 2015 Biodiversity Summit on the subject of “Practical Forest Conservation using the Market: FSC on the ground”. He spoke at the Eastern Ontario Model Forest practitioners workshop in 2015 about “A Practical Approach to High Conservation Values in Southern Ontario.”

In the search for how things work, Tom became interested in the governance of forest management in Ontario as it relates to social, economic and environmental benefits. Along with Jeremy Williams, he wrote Foundations for 21st Century Tenure. It is a discussion of new ideas in tenure.

Tom is an experienced facilitator, particularly with public participation related to forest management planning. He was asked by the Algonquin Forest Authority to facilitate their CSA public consultation. Recently he facilitated the provincial forest management training workshop for the Métis Nation of Ontario. He was an instructor in the Forest Management Planning courses for OMNR.

Tom was a member of the consulting team that reviewed and provided recommendations on future direction of Ontario’s forest management guides. This comprehensive review of all of the operational and environmental manuals used to implement forestry on crown land in Ontario was completed in 2000. It was the report that set out the format for the current structure of the forest management guides in Ontario, including the Stand and Site guide and the Landscape Guides.

In other work for OMNR, Tom was the original developer of the wildlife component of the Strategic Forest Management Model. This forecasted timber supply effects on wildlife through habitat supply approach. This computer model is used as the timber supply model for forest management planning in Ontario.

Tom has completed the ISO 14001 training course for lead auditors.

Tom authored "Timber Supply and Endangered Spaces" - A World Wildlife Fund discussion paper (1995) based on personal interviews with numerous forest managers and planners in New Brunswick, British Columbia and Ontario. Hard copies are still available.

Tom also has a record of peer reviewed scientific publications, including a number in the area of contaminant dynamics in birds. A partial list follows the list of recent reports and audits.