Del Meidinger Travel Scholarship
Del Meidinger has worked as a vegetation ecologist throughout British Columbia and in the early days of his career he benefited greatly from summer fieldwork in the forest, collecting vegetation, soils, and tree mensuration data. He hopes that this award will allow a student to gain valuable field experience by working in a forest management setting somewhere in British Columbia.
For over 40 years, Del has had a career as a forest ecologist in British Columbia. In his three decades with the BC Forest Service Research Branch, he led an extensive program of ecological research which culminated in the implementation of the Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification system—an ecological framework that provides the scientific basis for decision-making on issues related to conservation and forest management including tree species selection, ecologically-based timber supply analysis, at-risk ecosystem assessment, and climate change implications to forestry. He has also been intimately involved in the development of the ecosystem mapping protocols for BC for both Terrestrial and Predictive Ecosystem Mapping, and map accuracy assessment. He is also a writer and editor of the Illustrated Vascular Plants of British Columbia. Del also sits on the Canadian National Vegetation Classification Technical Committee, is a Regional Editor of the US National Vegetation Classification, and serves on the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) as a vascular plant specialist.