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Forest management under microscope (11/03)

Forests get a lot of use in Northern Ontario.

Forests get a lot of use in Northern Ontario.

Relied on for the economic livelihoods of foresters and tourism outfitters and the enjoyment of outdoors enthusiasts, their management is coming under study by a partnership of government, private enterprise and academia.

The Legacy Forest, which was established in June 2002 with funding from the Living Legacy Trust, encompasses over 1 million hectares of forest in Quetico Provincial Park and the southern half of Bowater’s Dog River-Matawin west of Thunder Bay. The goal of the Legacy Forest study is to examine the effects of various levels and types of management on large areas of the forest.

“A lot of the research that goes on is in small areas of the forest all over the landscape and they’re pretty hard to tie together. They all start off with different assumptions and basic starting information,” says Reino Pulkki, chair of the Legacy Forest steering committee.

He says the aim is to create a single database of information on a large area of land that scientists and foresters can access on forest management practices and their effects. The problem with looking at small areas of the forest is it may record effects that are noticeable on a small scale, but will not have an impact on large-scale operations whereas large impacts on large areas might be missed.

“It’s (a study of) the impacts of whatever we’re doing in the forests on bio-diversity and forest sustainability...it’s a long term project, at least 20 years, so as things happen out in the forest, we get a huge database in terms of future sustainability,” says Pulkki.

“The ultimate goal is to do a better job out there and we need to base that on good, sound knowledge of the forest,” says Bowater manager of fibre supply and planning Dave West. “What I’m looking for is better information that I can put into forest management. As long as I keep getting answers to the question I have and improvement in the knowledge base that I rely on for forest management planning, the project is of value.”

Partners for the project include Bowater, Lakehead University, the Canadian Forest Service, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists.

One of the first tasks at the start of the project was the division of the forest into zones of differing silvicultural intensities, which provides them with the ability to match duplicate data from different areas.

They are also setting up a “metadata warehouse” that links all the research data from the forest and a data exchange agreement that makes data available to interested parties.

Forest companies in Ontario are required to operate under 36 separate habitat protection and disturbance emulation guidelines,which some in the industry have criticized as not having sufficient science behind them to justify their requirements. West says the Legacy Forest will help in determining the efficacy of the guidelines and their restrictions.

A workshop is planned for January that will offer people a chance to benchmark the project since it will bring in researchers from outside of Ontario.