Women-led forest conservation

Priya Puri (she/her) is Raincoast’s Forest Conservation Program Coordinator. We could not be more excited to chat with her and celebrate the amazing work she’s been spearheading within the Forest Conservation Program. 

Hi Priya, can you briefly introduce yourself and the reasons why you chose to be where you are today? What informed your decision to work in Forestry? 

Hello, I’m Priya! I was born and raised on the West Coast, where nature is always near. I’m a keen forest explorer and fond of outdoor recreation, and it’s a blessing to live somewhere that lends endless opportunities for adventures in nature. This time spent in nature has helped get me where I am today, and it continues to propel me forward.

Growing up, I always thought I would end up in some form of medicine because I wanted to help people. I was particularly interested in pathology, and I even thought I wanted to be a coroner! Evidently, I did not end up in medicine. I like to think forestry found me when I wasn’t looking. 

Flashback to 2015, I was set to go study kinesiology. One day that spring, my dad came home from a work trip and told me about a professor he met on the plane who did research at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Forestry (as of 2026, the Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship). Next thing I knew, I submitted an application and was accepted to the Forest Sciences program, and then began what has been the most formative journey of my life to date.

Looking back now, it makes total sense that I would love forestry and studying natural sciences. The more I studied, the more I noticed that it wasn’t a far departure from my original interest in medicine. As a forest scientist, I still get to contribute to the health and well-being of living things, including people.

I stayed interested in pathology, and I became more focused on forest and plant pathology. This opened me up to the worlds of forest health and ecological restoration, and all of the different disciplines that intersect in these fields. In some way, I still did become a type of coroner, but I’m much more comfortable dissecting a dead plant or investigating decaying trees.

In my time at UBC, I completed my Bachelor of Science Honours and my Master of Science in Forestry, while gaining such a wealth of experience and knowledge that has all culminated in getting me where I am today. I learned that land is the best teacher there is, and it will always teach you new lessons when you engage with it meaningfully.

Can you tell us a bit more about your work on Arbutus? What does this species represent to you? What’s your relationship with it? Why arbutus? 

Ar-beauties! My journey with arbutus mirrors my experience finding forestry, in that it was there all along, it just didn’t click for me until I was spending time in nature with a new perspective.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time at Nanoose Bay with my family. Nanoose Bay is dense with coastal forest ecosystems where you can find the iconic native tree species, Arbutus menziesii (arbutus). As far back as I can remember, I always knew and recognised arbutus, even before I learned about other tree species. I referred to it affectionately as the ‘peely bark tree’ and liked to collect bark pieces to use in art projects when I was a little girl.

As I moved through my undergraduate degree, I was drawn to coastal forest ecosystems, and I became particularly interested in Garry oak ecosystems. During an undergraduate program meeting in 2018, Dr. Peter Arcese presented a Garry oak ecosystem directed studies opportunity on SḰŦÁMEN (Sidney Island) to the program students. I’ll be forever grateful to my friend who said, “Hey Priya, you love Garry oaks, why don’t you register for the directed studies?”

While completing the directed studies on Sidney Island, Dr. Arcese and I observed that many of the arbutus were ailing, showing symptoms of disease and decline, with their habitats heavily disturbed by overabundant deer browsing. This was my first foray into research – making an observation, asking a question, forming a hypothesis, then undertaking the steps to confirm or deny this hypothesis. 

During this directed studies, I completed a small project to assess the impact of overabundant deer browse on arbutus age class. We found that deer browse heavily on arbutus seedlings, preventing recruitment to the overstory and creating a deficit in age distribution across the landscape.

The time I spent on Sidney Island was the kickstarter for my undergraduate thesis project. I returned to Sidney Island in 2019 and completed a study assessing what landscape-level factors impact the prevalence of disease incidence and decline of arbutus. In my undergraduate research, I found that human disturbance, such as roads and trails, in addition to other landscape variables, led to increased prevalence of stem cankers and crown dieback on arbutus.

My undergraduate research naturally progressed into my master’s thesis research, where I instead flipped the lens and looked at arbutus as a host species. Knowing that the rapidly increasing decline is due to cumulative effects and exacerbated disease susceptibility, I wanted to know how arbutus could be bred and selected for traits that introduce resilience and resistance on the landscape. 

Using provenance trials on Texada Island and in the Cowichan Valley, I measured and assessed over 2000 arbutus representing seed sources from throughout its entire range, looking for patterns of local adaptation, maladaptation, and candidate seed sources for assisted gene flow. My research suggested that arbutus is an adaptable species and that migrating genotypes from more mid-range provenances could lead to improved survival, health, and performance in BC’s populations.

Working with arbutus feels very full-circle. The arbutus seed for the provenance trials I studied during my master’s was collected between 2006 and 2008. It’s crazy for me to think that while I was a kid collecting arbutus bark, there were scientists collecting seeds that would eventually grow into the trees I studied for my master’s degree over fifteen years later.

While I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve always been able to study and work in inclusive spaces, being a woman of colour in science and a historically white-male-dominated field like forestry has not always been easy. Besides growing up with it and always caring about it, I think this is another reason why I’m so passionate about arbutus. In the same way it’s a pillar in its ecosystems, it’s been a real pillar for me in my life, and has helped shape me into the scientist I am today.

When I feel unsure of myself, I remember that arbutus is resilient in the face of unprecedented challenges, and it can adapt and persist through insurmountable change. When I walk into rooms and feel like I stand out, I remember that arbutus stands out too in the forestscape, so I should always remember to embrace and celebrate what makes me unique and different.

When did you join Raincoast, and what do you do now?

I joined Raincoast in April 2024, just three weeks after successfully defending my master’s thesis! A big shoutout to whoever chose to use an arbutus photo on the job posting; you more than caught my attention.

As Forest Conservation Program Coordinator, I work to protect, conserve, and restore Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystems. I spend a good amount of time on S,DÁYES (Pender Islands), stewarding and monitoring Raincoast’s two protected properties, and I’m working to expand our land trust by increasing the amount of area we protect. As the twin biodiversity and climate change crises increase, through Indigenous engagement, research, monitoring, and restoration, I seek to find nature-based solutions to create climate-adaptive and resilient coastal landscapes. 

I like to say that working in forest conservation feels like being ‘a jack of all trades, but master of more than one’. With the Forest Conservation Program, communications and outreach are integral to our success. As we recently launched the Land Healing Stewards Initiative in collaboration with the Salish Sea Emerging Stewards Program, I’ve also been focusing heavily on community and youth education, resource development, and collaborative stewardship opportunities. 

I’ve still been able to chase my arbutus passions, and I’m working on a community-based project to create an educational resource for the propagation, stewardship, and monitoring of arbutus in the Salish Sea. Through this project, I’ve been able to spend time with community members who are just as passionate – if not more! – about arbutus, and want to be part of making sure it thrives into the future. Spending time with people, hearing their stories, learning how they take conservation into their own hands, and seeing their favourite trees reminds me of how we are all shaped by the places we live in, and how important it is to conserve these places for future generations.

Forestry, to me, has always been about the people and places, and my work with the Forest Conservation Program more than embodies that. In my time at Raincoast, I’ve become connected with a plethora of people and organizations working to conserve and steward Salish Sea ecosystems, and I’ve taken so many lessons from these connections into my work. I’ve come to learn that it’s not just people and places, but it’s also people in places. 

Through the Forest Conservation Program, I’m working to better connect people with the landscape they live in and instil an ethos of stewardship and understanding that, as people, we shape landscapes and that we are part of ecology. Ultimately, resilient landscapes will support resilient communities.

What excites you most about what you’re currently working on? What do you envision for Kingfisher and Flycatcher?

I’m excited about modelling change and addressing current global challenges through innovative approaches. With this work comes a lot of unknowns, but strangely, the unknown also excites me! Unknown just means that there are more questions to ask, solutions to find, and problems to solve. We are in novel times, which means we will have to strive to find novel solutions. I’m channeling a lot of this excitement into the ongoing work at our two co-owned conservation properties.

At KELÁ_EKE Kingfisher Forest, we’ve completed the first phases of our major restoration project to remove the gravel road, restore a wetland, and reconnect the fragmented forest. In our restored wetland, we’ve already observed Northern Red-legged frogs, a species at risk. We will continue to remove and restore the remaining gravel road, replacing it with diverse species and habitats. We are also working to manage invasive species at Gardom Pond, and we’ve heard many pollinators buzzing in the exclosures replaced with native plants!

At S,DÁYES Flycatcher Forest, we are focusing on monitoring and maintenance. Removal of invasive daphne/spurge laurel is ongoing, artificial cover objects were installed to monitor amphibians near the wetland and the presence of at-risk Sharp-tailed snakes (aka ‘sharpies’). This year, we will continue invasive species management, we will plant native species in cleared areas, and we will plant Garry oak meadow species in our restored meadow. 

At both of our properties, we will continue vegetation, wildlife, soil carbon, and other monitoring programs. The monitoring work we complete at both of our protected properties provides critical baseline information about the impacts of our restoration and stewardship efforts, and regionally, contributes to larger efforts focused on quantifying shifting baseline syndrome.

Neighbours, the community at large, and Salish Sea youth have all been a part of stewarding and restoring these properties. We couldn’t do what we do without the support of the community. In turn, the people who contribute to this work experience the outsized benefits of stewarding and protecting Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystems. If you would like to be part of our efforts and support our work, please donate to the Forest Conservation Program.

What’s your next event? Can we join?

You can keep an eye on our events calendar for upcoming opportunities to get involved. See you out there!