Ecosystem Management in the Boreal Forest

Title Page, Copyright Page, Preface, Acknowledgements

Management in the Boreal Forest WARNING PHOTOCOPYING KILLS BOOKS UNAUTHORIZED The CopyrightAct forbids the reproduction of works without the permission of rights holders.Unauthorized photocopying has become widespread,causing a decline in book sales and compromising the production of new works by professionals.The goal of the logo is to alert readers to the threat that massive unauthorized photocopying poses to the future of the written work. Presses de l’Université du Québec Le Delta I, 2875, boulevard Laurier, bureau 450 Québec (Québec) G1V 2M2 Telephone : (418) 657-4399 • Fax : (418) 657-2096 Email : puq@puq.ca • Website : www.puq.ca Diffusion / Distribution : CANADA and other countries Prologue inc. 1650, boulevard Lionel-Bertrand Boisbriand (Québec) J7H 1N7 Telephone : (450) 434-0306 / 1 800 363-2864 SUISSE Servidis SA Chemin des Chalets 1279 Chavannes-de-Bogis Suisse FRANCE AFPU-Diffusion Sodis Belgique Patrimoine SPRL 168, rue du Noyer 1030 Bruxelles Belgique 2009 Presses de l’Université du Québec Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bur. 450 Québec (Québec) Canada G1V 2M2 Edited by Sylvie Gauthier Marie-Andrée Vaillancourt Alain Leduc  Louis De Grandpré Daniel Kneeshaw Hubert Morin Pierre Drapeau Yves Bergeron Preface by James Fyles Management in the Boreal Forest Layout: Infoscan Collette-Québec Cover –  Design: Richard Hodgson Shots:  1 – Philippe Duval 2 – Antoine Nappi 3 – Claude Bouchard 4 – Marie-Noëlle Caron Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec and Library and Archives Canada cataloguing in publication Main entry under title: Ecosystem management in the boreal forest Translation of:Aménagement écosystémique en forêt boréale. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-2-7605-2381-4 1.Taigas - Management - Environmental aspects - Canada. 2. Sustainable forestry - Canada. 3. Logging - Environmental aspects - Canada. 4. Forest conservation - Canada. I. Gauthier, Sylvie, 1961- . SD567.A4313 2009 634.9'20971 C2009-940697-7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 PUQ 2009 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, translation, or adaptation without authorization.© 2009 Presses de l’Université du Québec Legal deposit – 2nd quarter 2009 Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada Printed in Canada 1 2 3 4 We are grateful for the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada under the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Publication of this book was made possible through the financial support of Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC). Preface Over the past two decades, the boreal forest has changed, in the minds of Canadians, from an untouched, remote land of trees and rivers, to a source of paper and wood products and an ecosystem threatened by industrial development. This changing awareness has brought with it a change in expectations for what the boreal forest can provide to Canadian society: construction materials and paper products, certainly, but also biological diversity, fresh water, recreation, and spiritual and cultural values. Society is asking more of its forests and of its forest managers. Changing expectations have challenged forest researchers and managers to move beyond the long-held views of sustained-yield management for wood products. The concepts of uniformly applied even-age management, and “normal” forest with equal representation of forest age-classes up to harvest age, were well adapted to landscapes in which wood was the only value product of the forests, but could not effectively meet multiple objectives. Social pressures in the 1990s, particularly on the west coast of North America, focused on biodiversity values associated with old-growth forests and drove the search for management systems that could provide those values on the landscape while allowing exploitation of timber values to continue. This discussion was brought into public view in Quebec by the release in 1999 of the film L’Erreur boréale, which questioned many of the long-held assumptions of forest management. The recommendations of the Coulombe Commission promoted the concept of ecosystem management (aménagement écosystémique) as a way to better meet the many demands that society is placing on the forest. viii Ecosystem Management in the Boreal Forest From its inception in 1995, the Sustainable Forest Management Network Centre of Excellence has been concerned with creating the knowledge required to develop a “new forestry” for the Canadian boreal forest. The Network’s early research...