Serge Bonin has a job where he gets to spend half of his time walking around in the woods. "Each season has its own advantages and disadvantages," he says. Spring and fall are his favourite seasons in which to work. "In summer it's too hot and in winter it's harder to get around," he says. "Although sometimes it's nice in winter, too, if you can get around on snowshoes."

Serge's job as a Forestry Management Technologist with Quebec's Ministry of Natural Resources is definitely not routine or monotonous. Part of it involves working with a regional forestry management agency in the Lanaudiere region of Quebec, sitting on committees, keeping a registry of recognized forestry producers in the area, and checking the silviculture work the agency oversees to replenish the forests. Producers can be individuals, municipalities, co-owners of a property, or a large company like Domtar. Producers send Serge documents showing the forestry work that has been done on their behalf and then he visits the site to verify that it has been properly carried out. The agency marks off the area using ribbons, much the same way police forces do at crime scenes, and Serge uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) to measure its dimensions. In the case of treeplanting operations, he won't inspect every single tree that has been planted. Rather, he marks off a sample area of land and checks to see how many trees have been planted, the depth and spacing between them, and whether they were planted in an upright position. "The tree can't be leaning more than 30 degrees because it won't grow properly," he says.

He also verifies that the soil around the tree is well packed in and that the roots are in mineral soil to ensure proper growth. There should be about 2,500 trees per hectare, but Serge knows the figure won't be exact. "That's the ideal but we know that during the treeplanting operation you don't wander around measuring everything," he says. So he generally allows for plus or minus 10 percent.

Then it's back to the office to prepare a report assessing the quality of the work, and to ensure that the requested work was carried out and meets the technical demands of the forestry agency.

Serge also handles requests for permits from people who want to set up maple sugar operations. They provide him with a plan that stipulates how many trees they want to tap, how much sap they plan to collect, whether they will be taking any wood off the property where the maple operations are to be located, and whether they are building a sugar shack and/or an access road to the property. "We have to ensure that the land is managed properly," Serge explains.

He is also responsible for issuing permits to people who want to harvest wood from the forest. "They have to tell us the quantity of wood they're processing and what they plan to do with it," Serge says. A permit is then issued for a fee that is based on the amount of wood being cut down.