Beautiful Plantations: can intensive silviculture help Canada to fulfill ecological and timber production objectives?

Abstract

There is growing international agreement that intensive silviculture will play a major role in meeting future demand for wood and wood fibre worldwide. In Canada, however, extensive forest management continues to be the dominant paradigm. Driven by low growth rates in primary forests and the consequent long rotations, current policies support only basic management, with little or no silvicultural intervention between stand initiation and final harvests. By contrast, native conifers and hybrid poplars (Populus spp.) grown in plantations have been shown to achieve increments of 6 to 29 m 3 ha -1 yr -1 in Canada. In this paper, we argue that increased production, economic, and environmental benefits can be realized in Canada by intensifying silvicultural practices over designated parts of the landbase. Indeed, the shift to intensive management may be essential to sustain Canada's competitiveness in the international forest products sector. In reviewing past work, we demonstrate that intensive silviculture may yield outputs that are competitive with many other regions, even those in the tropics. Achieving wide support for intensive silviculture will require integration of a broader range of silvicultural, environmental, and social objectives into management planning than has traditionally been the case. Such a broad-based strategy, especially where it has gained the support of communities, may be the most balanced and effective means of resolving many of the key forest management issues that face Canada in the 21 st Century.Key words: conventional intensive silviculture, super-intensive silviculture, plantations, foreign competition, multiple-use forests, native conifers, roads, CO 2 emissions, incentive RÉSUMÉOn s'accorde sur la scène internationale pour affirmer que la sylviculture intensive jouera un rôle déterminant en réponse à la demande future de bois et de matière ligneuse à l'échelle mondiale. Au Canada, cependant, l'aménagement forestier extensif continue d'être le paradigme dominant. À la suite des taux de croissance faibles dans les forêts primaires et par les longues révolutions qui en découlent, les politiques actuelles sanctionnent seulement l'aménagement de base, accompagné de peu ou pas d'intervention sylvicole entre l'établissement du peuplement et la récolte finale. D'autre part, les conifères indigènes et les peupliers hybrides (Populus spp.) en plantation ont démontré qu'ils atteignaient des accroissements de 6 à 29 m 3 ha -1 an -1 au Canada. Nous faisons la preuve dans cet article qu'une production ainsi que des bénéfices économiques et environnementaux accrus peuvent être atteints par l'intensification des pratiques sylvicoles sur certaines zones désignées du territoire. En effet, le passage vers l'aménagement intensif pourrait être essentiel pour maintenir la compétitivité du Canada dans le secteur international des produits forestiers. En révisant les travaux antérieurs, nous démontrons que la sylviculture intensive pourraient engendrer des retombées de niveau compétitif avec plusieu...

Assisted migration: uncertainty, risk and opportunity

“…Forestry in Canada continues to be far more extensive than it is in most of the important forest jurisdictions around the world, with legal responsibilities for reforestation typically limited to achieving "free to grow" status. In the future, such extensive harvesting of the timber frontier will be less cost-effective as transport costs increase and pressures to protect large areas of the boreal forest intensify (Park and Wilson 2007). This view is reinforced by the International Energy Agency, which acknowledges that oil price rises are inevitable and that peak oil could be imminent (IEA 2010).…”

Relationships between understory vegetation and hybrid poplar growth and size in an operational plantation

“…This is particularly true in the southern boreal region where the short but intense growing season is efficiently utilized by the rapid growth of hybrid poplar (Weih 2004). The use of hybrid poplars allows for fibre yields comparable to other areas with longer growing seasons and greater rainfall (Balatinecz et al 2001, Weih 2004, Park and Wilson 2007, Christersson 2010.…”

“…provides a viable option to help meet the increasing global market demand for fibre (Balatinecz et al 2001, Perry et al 2001, Weih 2004, Park and Wilson 2007. This is particularly true in the southern boreal region where the short but intense growing season is efficiently utilized by the rapid growth of hybrid poplar (Weih 2004).…”

Simulation of the Effect of Intensive Forest Management on Forest Production in Sweden

“…In the present study, the effects on potential future forest production of intensifying the management on 15% of the Swedish forest land were investigated during a 100-year period. Intensive forest management (IFM) has been studied and discussed in Atlantic Europe [20], Canada [21][22][23][24] and the US [25], but to our knowledge, no study from Sweden has previously been presented in an international journal. The aims of this study were to (i) determine the effects of IFM methods on possible future increases in forest growth (with and without limiting intensive management to sites with low nature conservation values), (ii) assess the time-lag between intensifying forest management and increases in forest yield, and (iii) evaluate the effect of intensified forest production on nature conservation values.…”