Opportunities and costs of intensification and clustering of forest management activities

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 711-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Hélène Mathey ◽  
Emina Krcmar ◽  
John Innes ◽  
Ilan Vertinsky
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Intensive Forest Management ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Planning Approach ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest ◽  
The Cost

The intensification of forest management in Canada has been advocated as a possible solution to the conundrum that increasing demand for conservation areas and increasing pressure for timber production have created. The benefits and disadvantages of intensive forest management in the context of the Canadian boreal forest are unclear and reaching conclusions about its general value from stand analyses may be difficult. In this study, a boreal forest in Ontario has been used to investigate the potential of intensive management to generate financial revenues and meet management constraints on volume flow and old-growth retention. Two aspects of intensive forest management are considered: intensive silviculture and concentrated harvest activities. The plans are generated with a decentralized planning approach based on cellular automata. The results for the case study show that increasing silviculture intensity can help fulfill high timber flow requirements under strict conservation requirements. This comes at the cost of reduced net revenues but from a smaller timber harvesting landbase. The main trade-offs found were those between harvest flow and financial benefits. Clustering both protected areas and harvest operations could help achieve the conservation and timber-related objectives simultaneously by improving the habitat value of conserved areas and decreasing the operational costs in harvested areas.

scholarly journals The Impact of Timber Harvesting Guidelines and Timber Sale Attributes on Stumpage Bidding Behavior

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Kilgore ◽  
Charles R. Blinn
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
Physical Characteristics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Bidding Behavior ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Timber Sale ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Twenty-seven public timber tracts were auctioned in Minnesota where bidders were required to submit two sealed bids for a tract–one with and the other without the use of timber harvesting guidelines. After the auctions, bidders were mailed a questionnaire requesting information about their logging business, the sources of information consulted in developing their bids, and perceptions of how various tract- and sale-specific factors and guidelines influenced their bidding behavior. The majority of responding timber harvesters did not consult any special sources and only one-half visited the tract before submitting their bids. Although bidding behavior was influenced by several factors, a tract's physical characteristics (e.g., volume of merchantable timber) had a greater influence on their bidding behavior than did any guidelines. Of the guidelines evaluated, those that required leaving merchantable trees (e.g., for wildlife or visual purposes) were reported to have the greatest influence on stumpage bids. Sale-specific variables (e.g., timber harvester's need for timber) had only a minimal to moderate influence on bidding behavior. The findings suggest that timber sale design can help mitigate the cost associated with implementing forest management guidelines.North. J. Appl. For. 22(4):275–280.

scholarly journals How do Alberta's, Ontario's and Quebec's forest operation laws respect ecological sustainable forest management criteria in the boreal forest?

2007 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Bourgeois ◽  
Daniel Kneeshaw ◽  
Louis Imbeau ◽  
Nicolas Bélanger ◽  
Stephen Yamasaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Aquatic Environment ◽  
Sustainable Forest Management ◽  
Forest Certification ◽  
Forest Operations ◽  
Ecological Criteria ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest ◽  
Forest Operation ◽  
To Receive

In order to receive forest certification and to respond to societal desires, many forest companies are attempting to demonstrate that their forest activities are «sustainable». The main objective of this paper is to qualitatively evaluate the ways in which forestry-related provincial regulations in the three provinces (Alberta, Ontario and Quebec) that contain most of the Canadian boreal forest help forest companies achieve certification with respect to ecological criteria. In the process of continually evolving towards sustainable forest management, we evaluate how these provincial regulations governing forest operations can be helpful in maintaining three criteria: biodiversity, the aquatic environment and soils. This study shows that the regulations evaluated have varied in their approach and thus have different strengths that must be underlined: (1) Ontario's approach is the strongest in terms of biodiversity, (2) Alberta and Ontario provide measures to abandon roads after harvesting, (3) Quebec provides the greatest specific measures for protecting waterways and aquatic species, (4) Alberta shows the greatest consideration for maintaining the most soil properties and functions. Better links between different regulations are necessary in all jurisdictions. The continual improvement of Canadian forest rules is often slow and advances at a different pace depending on regulators but it should be supported in all provinces. Key words: sustainable forest management, biodiversity, aquatic environment, soils, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec

Valuing a Logging Externality: Loss of the Water Purification Service of Temperate Coastal Rainforests

2017 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 1650032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Knowler ◽  
Ashley Page ◽  
Andrew Cooper ◽  
H. Andres Araujo
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Water Purification ◽  
Environmental Influence ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
Water System ◽  
Timber Harvesting ◽  
Traffic Volume ◽  
Multiple Use ◽  
Trade Offs

In many biodiversity rich watersheds, there is a lack of understanding concerning the trade-offs between timber harvesting and maintaining the watershed’s other ecosystem services, where losses of these services can occur as an externality from timber harvesting. As a result, the potential benefit from an appropriate mix of activities in multiple-use watersheds frequently remains unrealized. Our study provides insight into such trade-offs by estimating the value of a loss in a forest’s water purification/filtration service due to sedimentation caused by logging (the externality). More specifically, we develop a model to quantify the economic impact of increased sedimentation from forest roads on the quality of raw water withdrawn by a municipal water utility. Our approach is novel in several ways. First, we recognize the complex response of the water treatment plant to elevated sedimentation (turbidity) by considering a stochastic environmental influence on water system performance; to accommodate this complexity, we estimate the number of times turbidity exceeds an acceptable threshold by using a count data estimation procedure. Second, we generate alternative time series for turbidity that vary according to assumptions about forest management (logging versus no logging), traffic volume (road use intensity) and aggregate road length. We find that reductions in the economic value of the water purification/filtration service is more sensitive to traffic volume than other considerations but only when the road use is High, as the welfare effect in other cases is modest. Our analysis will be helpful to forest planners who must consider the trade-offs in forest management when timber harvesting can have harmful impacts on important ecosystem services, such as water purification/filtration.

Intensive forest management: Its relationship to AAC and ACE

2002 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Weetman
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Sustainable Forest Management ◽  
Good News ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Intensive Forest Management ◽  
Stable Operating ◽  
Reliable Performance ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Cost

Forest companies in British Columbia and Alberta have requested increases in allowable cuts on their public land tenures. The present regulatory framework about allowable cut effects is briefly outlined for each province. Seven requirements are proposed for granting an ACE, including consistent and reliable performance, risk assessments, stable operating and market conditions, robust age class distribution, government and public confidence, adequate benefits, and no unacceptable negative impacts on non-timber values. Some of the important "bad" and "good" news about allowable cuts is itemized, together with the drivers for change in sustainable forest management (SFM). It is concluded that professional and technical rigour is required in requests for an ACE. The cost of access to Crown timber has been increased by SFM and foresters and the industry are challenged to produce credible scenarios using new computer technologies, and then to carry them out. Key words: annual allowable cut, allowable cut effect, sustainable forest management, British Columbia,Alberta, forest regulation

Is regulated even-aged management the right strategy for the Canadian boreal forest?

2004 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 458-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bergeron
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Stand Age ◽  
Old Growth ◽  
Old Growth Forests ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in the development of forest management approaches that are based on an understanding of historical natural disturbance dynamics. The rationale for such an approach is that management to favour landscape compositions and stand structures similar to those of natural ecosystems should also maintain biological diversity and essential ecological functions. In fire-dominated landscapes, this approach is possible only if current and future fire frequencies are sufficiently low, in comparison to pre-industrial fire frequency, that we can substitute fire with forest management. I address this question by comparing current and future fire frequency to historical reconstruction of fire frequency from studies in the Canadian boreal forest. Current and simulated future fire frequencies using 2× and 3×CO2 scenarios are lower than the historical fire frequency for most sites, suggesting that forest management could potentially be used to recreate the forest age structure of fire-controlled pre-industrial landscapes. Current even-aged management, however, tends to reduce forest variability: for example, fully regulated, even-aged management will tend to truncate the natural forest stand age distribution and eliminate overmature and old-growth forests from the landscape. The development of silvicultural techniques that maintain a spectrum of forest compositions and structures at different scales in the landscape is one avenue to maintain this variability. Key words: boreal forest, even aged management, fire regime, old-growth forests, climate change, partial cutting

Using spatially explicit simulations to explore size distribution and spacing of regenerating areas produced by wildfires: recommendations for designing harvest agglomerations for the Canadian boreal forest

2007 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Belleau ◽  
Yves Bergeron ◽  
Alain Leduc ◽  
Sylvie Gauthier ◽  
Andrew Fall
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Size Distribution ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Fire Size ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest

It is now recognized that in the Canadian boreal forest, timber harvesting activities have replaced wildfires as the main stand-replacing disturbance. Differences in landscape patterns derived from these two sources of disturbance have, however, raised concerns that the way forest harvesting has been dispersed is potentially shifting patterns away from the natural range. In the context of natural disturbance-based management, we used a spatially explicit model designed to capture general fire regimes in order to quantify temporal variability associated with regenerating areas (burnt areas of 25 years or younger), and to develop strategic objectives for harvest agglomeration sizes and dispersion. We first evaluated temporal variability in the proportion of stands younger than 100 years (assumed to be even-aged stands) for various fire regimes (seven fire cycles: 50 to 400 years, and three mean fires sizes: 3000, 15 000 and 60 000 ha). Secondly, we quantified the size distribution and dispersion of regenerating areas for each fire regime. As expected by theoretical fire frequencies and size distributions, the importance of even-aged stands at the forest management unit level was found to decrease with longer fire cycles. However, the temporal variability associated with these proportions is shown to increase with mean fire size. It was also observed that the size distribution and dispersion of regenerating areas was primarily influenced by mean fire size. Based on these observations, natural disturbance-based management objectives were formulated, providing guidelines on harvest agglomeration size and dispersion. Key words: temporal variability, boreal forest, fire regime, forest management, age distribution, fire size distribution, clearcut agglomeration size distribution

A remote sensing approach to biodiversity assessment and regionalization of the Canadian boreal forest

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan P. Powers ◽  
Nicholas C. Coops ◽  
Jessica L. Morgan ◽  
Michael A. Wulder ◽  
Trisalyn A. Nelson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Species Richness ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Snow Cover ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Butterfly Species ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Viable Approach ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest

Successful conservation planning for the Canadian boreal forest requires biodiversity data that are both accessible and reliable. Spatially exhaustive data is required to inform on conditions, trends and context, with context enabling consideration of conservation opportunities and related trade-offs. However, conventional methods for measuring biodiversity, while useful, are spatially constrained, making it difficult to apply over wide geographic regions. Increasingly, remotely sensed imagery and methods are seen as a viable approach for acquiring explicit, repeatable and multi-scale biodiversity data over large areas. To identify relevant remotely derived environmental indicators specific to biodiversity within the Canadian boreal forest, we assessed indicators of the physical environment such as seasonal snow cover, topography and vegetation production. Specifically, we determined if the indicators provided distinct information and whether they were useful predictors of species richness (tree, mammal, bird and butterfly species). Using cluster analysis, we also assessed the applicability of these indicators for broad ecosystem classification of the Canadian boreal forest and the subsequent attribution of these stratified regions (i.e. clusters). Our results reveal that the indicators used in the cluster creation provided unique information and explained much of the variance in tree (92.6%), bird (84.07%), butterfly (61.4%) and mammal (22.6%) species richness. Spring snow cover explained the most variance in species richness. Results further show that the 15 clusters produced using cluster analysis were principally stratified along a latitudinal gradient and, while varied in size, captured a range of different environmental conditions across the Canadian boreal forest. The most important indicators for discriminating between the different cluster groups were seasonal greenness, a multipart measure of climate, topography and land use, and wetland cover, a measure of the percentage of wetland within a 1 km2 cell.

scholarly journals Trade-offs between wood supply and caribou habitat in northwestern Ontario

Rangifer ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel McKenney ◽  
Bryan Nippers ◽  
Gerald Racey ◽  
Rob Davis
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Fire Disturbance ◽  
Management Problem ◽  
Spatial Problem ◽  
Wood Production ◽  
Wood Supply ◽  
Northwestern Ontario ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Cost

Woodland caribou habitat management in northwestern Ontario is a complex spatial problem. The Strategic Forest Management Model (SFMM), a linear programming PC-based planning tool being developed in Ontario, was used to examine the impacts of alternative management strategies on caribou habitat. The management alternatives investigated included the cessation of timber management and maximising the present value of wood production without any explicit concern (in the model) for caribou. Three major findings are worth noting: 1) trying to maintain prime caribou habitat within active Forest Management Units will come at a cost to wood supply but the cost will depend on the absolute amount of area affected and the spatial configuration of that land in relation to mills. The cost of maintaining caribou habitat in one management unit at a level about 25 000 hectares is roughly $324 000 per year (about 3 cents for each Ontario resident). The imposition of an even-flow constraint on wood production is in fact potentially more costly; 2) Given the region is heavily dominated by spruce aged 90 years and over, forest succession and fire disturbance will likely cause large declines in prime caribou habitat in the near to medium term (20 to 40 years) even if no timber harvesting occurs; 3) The complexities of the trade-offs in this resource management problem highlight the limitations of any single modelling tool to satisfactorily address all issues. Planners need to take advantage of a wide range of analytical techniques to quantify the issues and formulate integrated policies.

Effects of 80 years of forest management on landscape structure and pattern in the eastern Canadian boreal forest

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (10) ◽  
pp. 1913-1929 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Boucher ◽  
Louis De Grandpré ◽  
Daniel Kneeshaw ◽  
Benoît St-Onge ◽  
Jean-Claude Ruel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Boreal Forest ◽  
Landscape Structure ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest
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