Section 5: Strategic Forest Management Issues Flashcards
As climate change continues to impact forest productivity, what do net gains or losses in productivity depend on?
Interactions between climate, disturbance agents, and management practices.
What general changes can be expected resultant of climate change?
Plantation failures (maladapted tree spp and planting stock)
Road and Dam Failures (increased frequency of storms and shorter winters affecting ice roads)
Shorter seasons for planting (areas of summer drought and risk of unseasonal frost).
Loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat
Loss or movement of jobs
Policy Objectives for Climate Change and Forest Carbon
Forest Carbon: Reduce emissions and increase sinks and sequestration.
Adaptation: To reduce risks, capture opportunities, and improve the ability of BC forests to withstand the full amplitude of climate change and variability.
Which Forest Based Activities can be eligible for creating offset credits?
reforestation (in areas with no legal obligation to reforest.)
afforestation (conversion of land to forest via planting, seeding, or human induced promotion of natural seed sources.)
improved forest management (any activity / combination of activities that can lead to incremental carbon gains such as longer rotation, fertilization, spacing.)
conservation or avoided deforestation (reducing the amount of forest land converted to other uses)
Does BC track its forest carbon?
Yes, via a gov’t developed forest carbon offset protocol (FCOP) to guide the design, development and quantification/verification of BC forest carbon offsets. Analysis includes public as well as private lands.
BC policy for adaptation of forest management includes:
- Legislation, Regulations and standards
(CF’s standards for seed use under FRPA amended) - Policy Guidance
- Administrative guidance
What were the amendments to the CF’s standards for seed use?
- support seed use decisions that move suitable (genetically adapted) seed sources in the direction of climate change.
- facilitate limited assisted migration (range and population expansion) of western larch
What parts of the FPPR enable practitioners to address climate change by proposing innovative stocking standards?
sec 16. provides opportunity to develop different stocking standards at regen and FG to account for potential risks and uncertainty.
sec 26. requires that FSPs address both immediate and long term forest health when selecting desirable species suited to the site.
sec 46 allows alternative FG standards to be proposed if there is a significant mortality of non conventional tree spp planted as part of a climate change adaptation strategy
What are some strategies foresters can use to plan for climate change by maintaining resilient forests?
- Avoid unduly simplifying landscapes
- Use best available science, policy and guidance tools to inform mgmt practices
- Get familiarized with projected changes in climate and ecosystem shifts in your area of practice. Use Plan2Adapt regional climate summaries.
- Incorporate climate change into forest planning at stand, landscape and management unit level.
- Account for changes in future site conditions
- reduce efforts on sites projected to become grasslands
What can be changed regarding the harvesting phase to adapt to changing climate?
- Focus harvesting in stands that are most poorly adapted to climate change.
- Develop harvest patterns that generate, maintain or enhance a diversity of stand ages, spp and genetic composition over time.
- Vary size and shape of CC’s and leave stream buffers
- Adjust operational seasons to reflect changing winter road conditions and earlier summer droughts.
What can foresters do regarding regen phase to adapt to changing climate?
- develop regen regimes that generate a diversity of stand ages and composition over landscapes.
- Avoid practices that generate uniform post disturbance stands
- Plant seedlings from a range of sources, particularly southern and low elevation populations
- Where naturally regenerated forests are forecasted to do poorly, increase planting of spp suited to both todays and expected future climate.
- prompt and full reforestation of unstocked disturbed forests with spp suited to future conditions.
What can foresters do regarding forest health to address climate change?
- prevent intro, remove or control invasive plants
- undertake sanitation cutting in infected stands
- control root disease via stumping
- reintroduce fire in ecosystems where fire cycles have been interrupted by past fire exclusion. this reduces catastrophic fire potential as well as insect outbreak issues.
- manage for complex adaptive ecosystems and structural and functional diversity at multiple scales.
- Diversify manufacturing capabilities
