Business View Magazine | July 2022

21 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 7 DRYDEN FOREST MANAGEMENT COMPANY LTD . maintain a database of timberland changes. Other technologies that might be on the horizon for DFMC are LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and the Internet of Things (IoT). The COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly impact DFMC’s operations, although its members, primarily loggers, encountered material and labor shortages and other supply chain shocks. “We were able to maintain most of our business functions because we were deemed essential and managed to avoid the strict shutdowns that affected other industries,” says Young. “Having said that, no company went without a negative impact, and those were felt at ground level. Contractors and receiving mills experienced supply issues and trouble getting their products out to markets.” profile also means the company does not require a lot of technological tools. However, he does add that the company is in the process of exploring emerging forest management technologies. “Although we are fairly rudimentary in terms of our business, we’re now starting to dabble with satellite imagery and some new advances in forest management technology like drones for surveying and monitoring,” says Young. “Those things are starting to become mainstream within our industry, so we’ll need to adopt them at some point.” Today, most forest management processes use (or are in the process of adopting) sophisticated GIS and GPS technologies to monitor and analyze timberland health, improve transportation routing, track forest growth, and