Adaptive Forest Management
by F. Wayne Bell and James A. Baker

If you asked 10 foresters “What is intensive forest management?” you would probably get 10 different definitions. This may not matter because the process of managing timber, forests, or ecosystems is neither intensive nor extensive. Management involves setting goals and objectives, evaluating and implementing options, monitoring and evaluating the effects of these options, and adjusting goals, objectives, or activities as required (see Figure 1). Evaluation of options necessitates learning about successes and failures, in other words, being adaptive. A universal problem faced by foresters is dealing with the uncertainty of future markets for wood products while practicing good forest stewardship to sustain all forest values.

Resource managers require knowledge about the resources they are managing. This knowledge can be acquired through updating inventories, monitoring, synthesizing information, or conducting new research. While inventories provide information about physical attributes (e.g., existing vegetation and soils) and presence of values (e.g., rare species), monitoring, if properly designed, provides timely information about the effects of management’s actions on management’s objectives. Experts can be called upon to help inform the resource manager through transfer and extension. New research will be required if alternative information sources are incomplete or inaccurate, or the manager is faced with critical uncertainties about how to achieve objectives regardless of incomplete or inaccurate information. There is no such thing as perfect knowledge because forest systems are dynamic, markets are dynamic, and social values of publicly owned forests are dynamic. Thus, managers need to acknowledge uncertainties, make assumptions, and take calculated risks.

Regenerating and growing a new forest requires investment in silviculture options that have the highest probability of achieving objectives of a forest management plan. These options can be loosely classified as extensive, basic, intensive, and elite (see Figure 2). Silviculture can be defined as the art and science of growing trees to meet a landowner’s objectives. It may include growing trees to maintain ecosystem processes (e.g. sequestering carbon), providing wood or non-timber products, or enhancing recreation areas or wildlife habitat. Silviculture is based on 2 factors. The first is the degree of control of tree species/genetics within a forest stand. The second is the degree of control of the resources (e.g. light, water, nutrients) and growing conditions.

Resource managers seldom apply a single silvicultural intensity across a landscape. No two landbases are likely to be managed using the same portfolio. Rather they may use a range of conservative or aggressive fibre supply portfolios, depending on their goals and objectives as well as associated uncertainties and risks.

Four possible portfolios/strategic alternatives are described from most aggressive to least aggressive (see Figure 3), based on silviculture intensity and the area to which they are applied. Each has implicit assumptions of input costs and future product value outputs.

High Value Future This portfolio of silviculture practices, which is theoretically plausible, would have the highest percentage of intensive and elite management areas to produce high value products. This assumes that a demand for high-value products will exist in the future and that high input costs will produce profitable wood. It also assumes that impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functions will be publicly acceptable. Depending on soil quality and other factors, intensive and elite areas might exceed 25-30% of the landscape. The amount of extensive and basic would be dependent on the percentage of intensive and elite. Protected areas would be kept at the current 12% level.

Bet Hedging with a Senate Sub-Committee Future This portfolio was recommended by the Senate Sub-committee on the Boreal Forest in 1999 as a means of maintaining a functional boreal forest and a viable forest industry. This is a bet-hedging policy because it assumes a degree of confidence or certainty in that there will be world markets for a range of product values, thus it places less emphasis on intensive silviculture and a higher percentage of protected areas than the previous “high value future” policy achieved above. The recommended percentages are 20% protected areas, 60% extensive and basic silviculture, and 20% intensive silviculture.

Bet Hedging with an OFAAB Future This portfolio was recommended by Ontario Forest Accord Advisory Board (OFAAB) in 2002, and it advocates combinations of silviculture practices from extensive to intensive to rehabilitate and maintain the structure and function of the forest following harvest. This portfolio reduces risk by producing a range of product values and assumes that world markets for products ranging from high to low value could emerge. Recommended percentages are 12% protected areas, 76% extensive/basic silviculture, and 12% intensive silviculture.

Garbage and Glue Future This portfolio is not currently being advocated but deserves some attention because it relies almost exclusively on extensive silviculture with basic treatments implemented only where necessary to meet guideline requirements. The major driver is minimizing input costs. A major risk is the assumption that there will be a demand for low value products (e.g. composites) but not high value products, or that high value products cannot be produced profitably. Another major untested assumption and perhaps unacceptable risk is that this policy may not maintain the long-term structure and function of the boreal. The possible percentages are 12% protected areas and 88% extensive silviculture (with some basic silviculture where necessary).

With any of the above portfolios/approaches an effective feedback loop is required. Monitoring and evaluation of potential benefits and impacts are necessary to reduce uncertainties and risks before adjusting goals and objectives. Without these steps, resource managers do not learn about the effects of their management on the system.

In summary, management must be adaptive to deal with uncertainties in achieving goals and objectives. At the scale of forest management planning, silviculture portfolios should be evaluated up-front based on the attributes of the landscape and ownership objectives. The portfolio can then be custom-designed for each forest, since a single intensity is unlikely to be sufficient. Uncertainties and risks associated with each portfolio need to be evaluated using existing knowledge and information. The recent advent of spatial planning tools that incorporate economic and ecological evaluations can be used to conduct up-front evaluation of tradeoffs among the portfolios, and identify the critical variables to monitor in order to determine impacts on specific values. Evaluating these impacts and incorporating this information into revised plans will ensure continued management improvement.