GRCA forestry specialist first winner of award
Martin Neumann, of Guelph, recently received the Zavitz award from the Ontario Professional Foresters Association at its 54th annual conference in Timmins.
The award is named for E.J. Edmund Zavitz, Ontario’s first provincial forester and the person known as “The Man Who Saved Ontario with Trees and Determination,” recognizes significant contribution to Forest Conservation.
Neumann is the first recipient of that award. From 1982 to 1992, he was forest technician with the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) where he worked with people to implement the planting of over 6-million trees in the Grand River watershed.
After a two year secondment with the Canadian Forest Service as program officer for Ontario’s Tree Canada program, Neumann returned to the Grand River Conservation Authority in 1996 as forest resource planner and is currently supervisor of terrestrial resources at the GRCA.
He has held positions as a director of the Ontario Forestry Association and co-chairman of its private woodlands committee; founding co-chairman and current president of Trees for Guelph; as well as director and Conservation Ontario representative for the Forest Gene Conservation Association. He became an associate member of the OPFA in 2003.
