Community forests in Canada: An overview

Research on forest management in North America has tradiLa recherche sur l'amknagement forestier en Atnkrique du Nord tionally focussed on large, industrial forest tenures (involving both a port6 traditionnellement sur les grandes tenures forestibres public and private land), or small, private woodlot management.industrielles (comprenant B la fois des terrains publics et privks), Recent discussion and experiments in Canada involve new instiou sur l'amknagement des petits for& privkes. Les rCcentes tutions for forest management. These alternative forest mandiscussions et expkriences rkalides au Canada impliquent de nouagement systems -namely, co-managed forests and community veaux partenaires en amknagement forestier. Ces modes altematifs forests -are compared to traditional forest management along d'amknagement forestier, des for&ts cogkrkes et des forsts comseveral dimensions, including: locus of decision-making, nature munautaires, sont compades 21 l'arnknagement forestier traditionnel of decision-making, scope of decision-making, tenure structure, selon certaines dimensions, dont : le centre de prise de dkcision, scale, and knowledge base. There exists a gap between abstract la nature de la prise de dCcision, le domaine de la prise de dkcidiscussions and practical applications of these models. Prospects sion, la structure de la tenure, l'khelle, et la base de connaissances. for the continued development of these alternative management IntroductionIndustrial leases and small, private, non-industrial ownerships have been the dominant forms of forest tenure in Canada for the past century. While forest management varies on these lands, one may characterize forestry activities on large leaseholds as industrial forest management. The vast majority of commercially productive forest land in Canada is publicly owned and leased to large forest products corporations. This land is managed primarily for the production of fibre resources. Management, or lack thereof, is more diverse on small, private holdings. This is reflective of the diversity of values held by woodlot owners. This paper will examine two additional institutional models of forest management relatively new to Canada; co-managed forestry and community forestry.The forestry profession, in both the public and private sectors, is currently facing a legitimacy crisis. That crisis comprises two parts: 1) the general public is demanding greater accountability of forest managers and calling into question the efficacy of the current institutional mechanisms for forest management; 2) there is a growing preference for ecosystem-based forest management -management that balances a broad range of benefits derived from the forest. With respect to the first issue, there are many questions being raised in current debates on forest policy, such as: is the current scale of existing industrial forest management the best able to achieve sustainable management of forests? Are the current forest tenure arrangements the most efficient and equitable? Is the nature and locus of de...

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving toward consensus-based forest management: A comparison of industrial, co-managed, community and small private forests in Canada

Beckley¹

1998

“…Most of the current Canadian forestry and conservation literature concentrates on resource use pressure and carrying capacities of ecosystems, but the two challenges are also important, and need to be resolved in order to ensure sustainable forest use in the Prince Albert Model Forest. This aspect has been emphasized in recent research on co-management of natural resources (Notzke 1994;Thomas and Schaefer 1991), and with the concept of community forests (Duinker et al 1994).…”

Section: Local Sustainability Challengesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Sustainable use of the boreal Prince Albert Model Forest in Saskatchewan

Bouman¹,

Langen²,

Bouman³

1996

Canada recently embarked on a model forest program that is guided by the notion of sustainable development. Ten model forest sites have been established at operational scales (0.1–1.5 million ha) in different ecoregions since 1992. This study presents a framework for advancing both the human welfare and environmental dimensions of sustainable forest use by a localized multi-stake-holdership of First Nations, government and industry in the boreal Prince Albert Model Forest, Saskatchewan. The pressure on the local forest environment has been rising due to timber harvest and tourism. Human welfare has been influenced strongly by colonial legacies such as racial divisions, territorial boundaries, and centralized forest administration. The landbase, productivity and forest value approaches are proposed to advance sustainable forest use; but current data availability favours the land-base approach. Analysis of forest inventory data suggests that management needs to plan for a significant aggregation of harvest areas to sustain ecological and cultural functions which depend on large and continuous patch size. Forest policy-making must address ownership issues, local economic development, and economic philosophies of the stakeholders in order to overcome the colonial legacies and to redefine management responsibilities. The study proposes that the currently dominating government-owned management concepts should evolve into a more localized concept of ownership and management that can be sustainably supported and financed by forest stakeholders, governments, and local communities. Key words: sustainable development, boreal forest, patch size, forest policy-making, stakeholder, First Nation, community

“…For example, Duinker et al (1994) define a community forest as "a tree-dominated ecosystem managed for multiple community values and benefits by the community." Masse (1995) describes community forestry as "the control of forest land by a community to provide local benefits.…”

Section: Definitions Of Community Forestrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The objective of this policy is to allow these lands to contribute to the revitalization and socioeconomic development of local communities through regionally designed initiatives 9 . The first such agreement was signed with the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Regional Development Council in 1994, allowing municipalities in this region to assume direct control of 300 000 ha of Crown land (Duinker et al 1994). In addition to being granted the right to sell small parcels (< 400 ha), municipalities were also permitted to sign Forest Management Contracts with the Ministry of Natural Resources for larger parcels, thereby creating municipal or regional forests.…”

Section: Territorial Management Agreementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lack of systematic reporting on community forest practice, particularly in eastern Canada, has meant that the same well-publicized examples tend to be recycled in the literature. The few existing surveys of community forestry were mostly undertaken in the mid-1990s, and focus either on select or geographically specific examples of community forestry (Duinker et al 1994, Masse 1995, Guertin 1997, Anderson and Horter 2002.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A national portrait of community forestry on public land in Canada

Teitelbaum¹,

Beckley²,

Nadeau³

2006

ABSTRACT:Despite the interest community forestry generates, there is little published literature on the array of initiatives currently taking place across Canada. This paper presents the results of nationwide survey of community forestry initiatives on public land. The survey focused on basic characteristics such as objectives, organizational structures, and tenure types. The research revealed that there are over one hundred community forest initiatives currently taking place on public land, mainly in Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. Most of them are run through local government organizations. Approximately 60% operate on Crown land while the remaining 40% operate on land owned fee simple by local governments. The median landbase is 4200 ha. The average age of community forests is 10 years.Key words: community forestry, community-based management, public participation, local governance, forest management organizations, Canada Résumé Malgré l'intérêt suscité par la foresterie communautaire, on retrouve peu d'article sur l'ensemble des projets en cours au Canada. Cet article présente les résultats d'un sondage pan-canadien des projets de foresterie communautaire réalisés sur les terres publiques. Le sondage s'est attardé sur les caractéristiques de base comme les objectifs, les structures organisationnelles et le type de tenure. Les recherches ont révélé qu'il y a plus de cent projets de foresterie communautaire en cours sur les terres publiques, principalement en Ontario, au Québec et en Colombie-Britannique. La plupart sont entrepris par des organismes locaux issus des gouvernements. Près de 60 % sont réalisés sur des terres de la Couronne, tandis que les 40 % restants sur des terres détenues par les gouvernements locaux. La superficie moyenne des projets est de 4 200 ha. L'âge moyen des forêts communautaires est de 10 ans.