9 minute read
Forestry 101 – How are forests in northwestern Ontario managed?
BY RYAN HAINES
Even prior to COVID-19 resulting in funds unspent on winter vacations being reallocated to home renovations, the forest industry in northwestern Ontario has been on a prolonged boom in the latest boom-bust cycle characteristic of the industry. This increased demand, combined with the removal of 700,000 hectares of no harvest zone north of Kenora in the Whiskey Jack Forest, has resulted in increased demands on the wood in the surrounding area to supply the area mills.
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Forest management plans must ensure that harvest levels do not exceed what is deemed ecologically and socially sustainable. The demand for wood is balanced with a myriad of environmental and social requirements embedded in provincial legislation, which is carried out via the development of 10-year forest management plans. These plans take almost three years to develop. Understanding the context and process for these plans is critical to gain an understanding of how forestry is carried out in Ontario.
Forest management planning in Ontario
Although clearcutting has been practiced since the beginning of industrial harvesting in the area over a century ago, the way clearcuts have been planned, implemented, and renewed at the landscape level has changed radically over the past few decades. With the rise of the global awareness of sustainability issues in the second half of the 20th century, Ontario was one of the first jurisdictions in Canada to embrace the principle of Sustainable Forest Management with the goal to maintain long-term forest health.
The Crown Forest Sustainability Act (1994), along with its regulations and the four regulated manuals, is the sole piece of legislation that governs forestry activities on Crown land in Ontario. To meet these legislative requirements, every decade, forest managers embark on a three-year planning process to develop a 10-year plan for each Forest Management Unit in Ontario. Each plan is prepared following a comprehensive and prescriptive process based on regulated manuals and forest management guides.
Ecological context
Clearcutting, the most common harvesting method in northwestern Ontario, takes trees and leaves behind a completely changed area, including: stumps, residual trees (standing dead trees and live trees), and patches of exposed soil. Clearcutting is a major disturbance that shocks the ecosystem and radically changes the area, including habitat for many species of plants and wildlife. Many ask why clearcutting is still allowed? We need wood to build and heat our houses, produce paper, and other pulp products; but why not use less disruptive methods, such as selective harvesting that only removes some trees?
The short answer to this question is light. Clearcutting removes big trees and creates conditions which allow for lots of light to reach the forest floor, whereas selective harvesting only creates “small” shady spaces on the forest floor for new trees to establish.
Prior to significant advances in fire suppression during the second half of the twentieth century, large forest fires used to burn hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest on a regular basis, leaving behind large swaths of dead trees and disturbed forest. Within a year or two following these fires, there would be a flush of growth as a new generation of plants and trees rapidly colonized the area. Many of these species would not be able to grow without a major disturbance because they need more light in order to survive. Examples of species that thrive in these conditions include jack pine, poplars, tamarack, and blueberries.
Similar to the needs of different plant species, there is also an abundance of wildlife that are dependent on large areas of young forest habitat, including moose, deer, grouse, and many songbirds. Historically, large forest fires would help to make sure that there is a diversity of habitats available, including young, mature, and old forests. Many wildlife species in northwestern Ontario have adapted to large-scale forest fires (and now harvesting activities that mimic fire). These species have also adapted to move around the landscape as the forests ages and/or burns.
The summer of 2021 has provided us with a stark reminder that northwestern Ontario is a fire-based ecosystem. Woodland Caribou Provincial Park has implemented a policy to not fight fires within the park boundaries to address the ecological implications of large tracts of boreal forest that are not logged and are subject to aggressive fire suppression. This park fire policy resulted in hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests north of Kenora being left to burn over this past summer, often blanketing the region in smoke and ash.
Outside of provincial parks and protected areas, Ontario has utilized forestry activities to mimic the fires that have historically been an important part of the forest ecosystems in the region.
To be clear, logging activities do not perfectly replicate the ecological characteristics of a forest fire. For example, forest fires will burn the soil layer, often deep into the roots of the existing plant species, limiting sprouting and burning existing seed banks within soil organic layers. Coupled with a flush of nutrients from ash and lots of light, fires create seedbeds with excellent growing conditions for new trees.
To overcome these and other differences, forest managers are required to consider the historical impact of fires on the landscape and make their best efforts to replicate them when determining where cutting takes place to ensure that the forest regenerates in a manner that mimics the natural forest condition as much as possible. Site preparation, tending and planting/seeding are used to help forests to renew to a similar state that would have historically resulted from fires.
It is important to keep in mind that northwestern Ontario is not a coastal rainforest. Two-hundred-year-old forests in this area are not the majestic dark forests with two-meter-wide trees that are found in areas such as Cathedral Grove or Fairy Creek that are emblematic of the coastal rainforests of British Columbia. Old growth boreal forests are more likely to resemble a game of pick-up sticks being played by giants as trees mature and then rot and fall to the forest floor with new species of trees such as balsam fir, spruce and birch establishing in the canopy gaps created by dead trees. Despite its rugged appearance, these forests are still an important habitat for many species which need vertical structures of dead logs, and shelter (e.g., pine marten). Forest management planning needs to make sure that all habitats are available within the management unit in amounts and arrangements that would be found in natural conditions.
Forest regeneration occurs shortly after an area being clearcut. The summer of 2021 has provided a stark reminder that we live in a fire-based ecosystem.
The summer of 2021 has provided a stark reminder that we live in a fire-based ecosystem.
Social context
The interests and values of the people who live in and use the forest must also be considered in forest management planning. Consultation with Indigenous communities (First Nations and Metis) and accommodation of their values and interests is a legal requirement as dictated by various court decisions. Social license, or gaining broad public support for development activities, has come to the fore in resource management in recent decades and the interests of cottagers, outfitters, hunters, anglers, and other individuals or groups that use the forest are an important component of the forest management planning process. The accommodations that are often made for social interests include timing of harvest, viewscapes (visual appeal from roads or lakes), maintenance of forestry roads for access, and protection/enhancement of gathering areas (berries or medicinal plants).
The forest management planning process in Ontario provides several ways and opportunities to get involved during the three-year planning process and through the ten-year plan implementation. These processes provide cottagers and other concerned residents or groups with an opportunity to influence the objectives of the plan by effectively communicating their interests in and benefits they would like to see from the forest. More information on how to get involved can be found at ontario.ca/document/ participate-forest-management-ontario/ how-get-involved-forest-management
Forestry—the imperfect solution
Forestry activities, including logging, clearcuts and silviculture (forest regeneration), are an imperfect attempt to mimic the natural processes and disturbances found on the boreal landscape. Outside of our parks, it has become expected that the province aggressively suppresses fires to protect municipalities or cottages.
This poses an ecological challenge, as the fire cycle naturally found in the boreal forest has been disrupted. The demand for wood and wood products provides a mutually beneficial solution to this problem. The author recognizes that it is convenient that claims of mimicking large fires also happens to provide an economical way of feeding local mills, but it is difficult to envision another feasible way of protecting infrastructure from forest fires while ensuring natural ecological processes can continue on the landscape.
There have been significant changes in forest management planning in recent decades, including how clear-cuts are distributed, shaped and renewed, and how much wood is made available from a management unit. Today, forest managers are legally required to consider historical ecological processes as well as the natural forest condition, then utilize extensive modelling of the forest landscape to consider how logging can best mimic historical impacts of fire while accommodating a variety of wildlife habitat needs, all while balancing the human economic and social priorities in the forest. As anyone who has participated in a forest management planning process can attest to; the time, factors, and scientific inputs and modelling that go into forest management plans is overwhelming. While not perfect, the current forest management planning process in Ontario does attempt to provide an approach that addresses the natural ecological processes in the forest that surrounds us.
Fires, logging, and lake buffers
For decades, LOWDSA’s LakeSmart teams have been stressing the importance of maintaining natural vegetation in the riparian (near shore) zone. The scientific literature demonstrates that leaving natural vegetation on the shoreline is critical to minimize impacts of soil runoff and nutrient inputs on lake health. However, to mimic the pattern of fires on the landscape, forest managers will often propose extending cut blocks right to the edge of a lake. This causes some concern for cottagers regarding the impacts to lake health as well as the aesthetics of the shoreline.
Riparian disturbance created by logging is very different than lands cleared for cottage development. While cottagers typically clear lands to create a lawn, deck, or other uses that are permanent in nature, logging in the riparian zone is a “once in a generation activity” with the young forest and its related environmental benefits restored within a few years after the removal of the trees.
Therefore, while cut blocks that extend to the edge of the shoreline may result in additional nutrients into the adjacent waterbody, the impacts are much more limited over time when compared to road and cottage developments. This increase in nutrients should still be taken into consideration but must be balanced with the ecological needs of providing areas of young forest around the shoreline of lakes to create a variety of riparian habitats for wildlife species. As always, careful landscape and stand level planning needs to take place before deciding how riparian areas are managed.
