Updated Daily!
| * * * IN-HOUSE RESOURCES * * * |
|---|
Ecoforestry is about forests -- about protecting the forest and related ecosystems that sustain life on Earth. Ecoforestry is not about canny ways to cut more trees or clever ways to combine logging with berry-picking and bird watching. Ecoforestry is about understanding our place as humans in ecosystems and acting on that understanding.Ecoforestry is about future generations of people -- about taking the time to provide intergenerational equity for all life.
Ecoforestry is ecosystem-based. The goal of ecoforestry is to maintain fully functioning forest ecosystems. In contrast, the central goals of conventional forestry are to maintain timber supplies and an adequate return on stockholder*s investments. Conventional forestry, in other words, is timber-based or profit-based.Human societies depend (more than we usually care to admit) on healthy, fully functioning ecosystems. Because ecoforestry maintains whole ecosystems, it also maintains healthy human communities. Sociologist Patricia Marchak and economist Thomas Michael Power have shown that when forests are degraded, human communities that depend on the forest suffer a decline in every measure of well-being.
Human economies depend (more than we usually care to admit) on healthy, fully functioning human communities. Because ecoforestry maintains human communities, it provides the options and foundations for a sustainable, diverse economy, based upon meaningful work, which provides for the whole person -- spiritually, mentally, and physically.
Conventional forestry provides jobs; ecoforestry provides jobs that people love to do. While cutting fewer trees, ecoforestry can, in fact, provide more jobs than conventional forestry (by a factor of three times or more) by creating not only a wide spectrum of timber and wood product-related jobs, but an even wider spectrum of non-timber jobs, from wildcrafting to permaculture to ecosystem restoration. Because ecoforestry provides for a continuation of large, old trees, ecoforesters will always be able to supply high quality wood that is necessary for value-added wood products, from timber frames to furniture. Such diverse, community-based economies are the only sustainable economies in the long term.
Albert Einstein provided some wisdom that is applicable to ecoforestry: "A clever person solves a problem -- a wise person avoids it." The lifetime of a tree starts with the germination of a seed and ends when the fallen tree finally disappears into the forest soil. This lifetime may span 500 to 2,000 years and beyond. Forests are built upon fallen trees, yet conventional forestry does not replace them. Without waiting centuries or millennia for natural processes to occur, no person is clever enough to replace fallen trees. However, ecoforestry gives us the wisdom to avoid this and other problems. Will we listen?
CAN ECOFORESTRY WORK?
Working from within the BC Forest Service, Jim Smith and his team prove to doubters in government and industry that alternative logging can make money. And, preserve the land for wildlife, watersheds, and outdoor recreation while providing more jobs than conventional forestry. Jim Smith is Director of the West Arm Demonstration Forest, Box 399, Creston, BC V0B 1G0 /
"Bringing ecoforestry to the BC Forest Service" by Jim Smith
BACKGROUND
British Columbia (BC) has been severely criticized over the years for its forest management practices. Although this criticism has spurred some recent changes in the form of a Forest Practices Code, the majority of timber-cutting operations in the province still follow an industrial approach. One of the few examples of a more holistic approach to forest management is the BC Ministry of Forest*s own Small Business Forest Enterprise Program (SBFEP) in Vernon.
SBFEP is a program that auctions standing timber to small logging companies and contractors. Approximately 13% of BC*s timber is sold this way. (Of the rest, nearly 85% is controlled by large corporations through long-term tenure agreements with the government.) The small-business program gives the Forest Service a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate innovative forest management.
The changes actually began in 1983 when the Vernon Forest District decided to try some alternatives to clear-cutting to control a mountain pine beetle infestation. I joined the Vernon District staff in 1985. Before that, I had been working on a joint Canada/US project to use partial cutting in an effort to preserve habitat for the Selkirk Caribou herd near Creston, BC. When I arrived in Vernon, the interest in pursuing options was already there; I have been fortunate to work for 11 years as the Small Business Forester for the Vernon Forest District in the Okanagan. Organizations often reflect the philosophy and attitudes of the people working in them. This is certainly the case in the Vernon Forest District. Several key staff members here have a vision of forest management that genuinely considers the whole forest -- not just timber.
LOCATION
Vernon is located in south central BC and encompasses a diverse forest ranging from dry ponderosa pine grassland types to wet interior cedar hemlock ecosystems to high elevation subalpine forests of spruce and fir. Our operating areas have a sampling of them all. Non-timber values of the forest include providing community watersheds, important ungulate winter range, grizzly bear and mountain goat habitat, important viewscapes, and plenty of areas for angling, camping, and hiking. We didn*t look at non-timber values as problems, but rather as opportunities to demonstrate appropriate forestry. And we had fun doing it!
VERNON LOG SALE PROJECT
In 1993, some fairly large amounts of timber were released from corporate control following a tenure transfer. The Ministry assigned an additional 40,000 cubic metres of forest land in the Vernon District to the SBFEP. Over the next few years, with Ministry approval, we designed and carried out the Vernon Log Sale Project. The Ministry was interested in three objectives:
*to document the practicality of alternative logging methods in use in the District;
*to investigate alternative methods of selling logs; and
*to test the financial viability of both the above projects.
First, identifying the Forest Ecosystem NetworkTranslating a holistic vision into reality begins with a good plan. We had some of our forestry contractors develop Total Resource Plans for the 38,000 hectares in our operating areas. These plans first identified critical areas that needed preservation or special treatments, and thus old growth areas, major riparian zones, recreation sites, and areas of terrain instability were identified and protected. Critical wildlife habitat was mapped as were movement corridors. These corridors were used to define a Forest Ecosystem Network (FEN), which ensures long-term landscape connectivity for all animals and plants and the protection and/or special treatment of critical values. In short, the FEN serves as the backbone of the plan.
Second, harvesting trees responsibly
Next, in the areas we identified as available for harvesting (about 70% of the total area), we planned cut-blocks and road networks and scheduled appropriate silvicultural systems and harvesting methods. As often as possible, we used silvicultural systems that protected or enhanced the values in the forest, such as shelterwood, group selection, or single tree selection systems, and we established a policy of "taking the worst and leaving the best." We applied these methods to 65 - 70% of the area we harvested or planned for harvesting.
Third, selling our product
The idea of selling the logs that we harvested through an SBFEP log yard had its roots in the Forest Resource Commission*s report tabled in 1990. At that time, the commissioners recommended diversifying the forest economy of the province by creating log markets. In BC, logs are not normally available for purchase by species and grade or in small quantities. Because we do not have a truly competitive log market, the provincial government (and thus, society) captures only a fraction of the value of timber that is cut. We proposed to test the concept of an open log market for some of the 160,000 m3 we cut annually, and have since demonstrated that a small competitive log market generates about four times the gross revenue as current industry-government tenure models. Costs are higher due to the greater intensity of labour at all phases -- i.e. scaling 100% of the logs, sorting products, slower and more careful logging. The average stumpage revenue from large companies is around $25/m3, whereas our net revenue is between $50 and $60/m3.
The log yard has been running for four years now with great success. Manager Tom Milne has done an excellent job of responding to customers* requests for log sorts; he now sells about 48 different products. Traditional products such as sawlogs and peelers make up about 70% of the Vernon Log Yard sales; these are bought by a variety of mills, both large and small. The other sales are specialty items such as house building logs, guitar blank wood, and over-sized logs. These are usually bought by small value-added woodworking firms and individuals. The beauty of the log yard is that anyone can buy logs in any quantity. The yard sells approximately 2,000 m3 of logs a week from July to March, for a total of 55,000 m3 per year.
Achievements and advantages
The log yard has many advantages for both customers and the government. All costs and revenues are actual competitive figures and have given the government a good look at the economics of partial cutting. The Vernon project has shown that alternative silviculture systems and an open log yard are profitable and practical. For years, the timber industry has been telling the government that these systems were not economically feasible. It should know better now!
Partial cutting and open log sales also provide significantly more job opportunities per volume of wood cut for everyone involved -- foresters, loggers, truckers, scalers, log yard operators, and value-added woodworkers who can finally get wood. The big advantage for me as a forester, though, is the ability to use forestry techniques that have strong public support.In late 1994, Herb Hammond of the Silva Forest Foundation (SFF) contacted me about certifying some of our timber management areas as ecologically sustainable. SFF had developed a set of criteria similar to those of the Forest Stewardship Council, a worldwide certification organization. After looking at a number of our proposed silviculture prescriptions, Herb decided to have a close look at three logging blocks. One block was certified in October 1995; the logs from that block going to our log yard are tagged with SFF*s Eco-Cert mark as certified wood. This was Canada*s first certified timber and we are very proud of it.
CONCLUSIONOver the years, people from all over the world have visited our forests to see the gentle management practices and procedures in the log yard. We*ve also received dozens of letters from people expressing their support for this kind of forestry and the economic opportunities it provides. In BC, that is a major change in the public*s response to forest management! On 19 June 1996 I was showing about 50 industry and Forest Service "communicators" (public relations people) an area of Douglas fir that had been partially cut in the fall of 1994. We had logged about 30% of the stand volume in our usual mode of "take the worst and leave the best." After a short discussion, it became clear that most of the industry folks were not in favour of that kind of logging. As we were walking through the lush herbaceous growth on our way back to the bus, a couple of the people accused me of showing them a stand that hadn*t actually been logged. They couldn*t see any stumps! After showing them several fresh stumps hidden by the pathfinder and arnica, I said, "You know, that*s the best compliment I*ve ever had for our forestry practices."
OPINIONS WANTED ON SAVING FOREST BIODIVERSITYJoin Global biodiversity magazine's Forum posted an article from our upcoming Winter issue titled "We care about forest biodiversity" by Simon Nadeau and Jean Pierre Martel of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. Also posted is the article they are reacting to, from a past issue, "Who cares about forest biodiversity" by Jeffrey McNeely, Chief Scientist, IUCN. In their article, Nadeau and Martel say "Progress in conserving forest biodiversity through forest management is dependent on sound science."
Are the initiatives of the forest industry based on sound science? Is ecoforestry a viable option? Let us know what you think. We plan to print excerpts of some of the comments sent to the Forum in our Winter issue.
Guest Editorial by Herb Hammond, Director of the Silva Forest Foundation.Herb is known around the world as a Registered Professional Forester and forest ecologist with more than 25 years experience in research, industry, teaching, and consulting.
GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY magazine is published quarterly by the Canadian Museum of Nature. Upcoming topics include: Eco-agriculture (theme issue 1998)Assessing insect biodiversityProgress in marine conservation biologyThe purpose of parasites
| * * * IN-HOUSE RESOURCES * * * |
|---|