Innovative Ways of Forest Conservation for Sustainable Forest Management in Canada

Canadian Forestry and Conservation – Innovative Ways of Forest Conservation for Sustainable Forest Management in Canada
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Innovative Ways of Forest Conservation for Sustainable Forest Management in Canada
Introduction
Canada’s potential for progressive forest conservation and management practices is immense. The forested regions of Canada are faced with chronic environmental conflicts of try to balance ecological integrity with socio-economic needs. With new markets for Canadian forest products, there is need for sound environmental performance and greater scientific understanding of Canada forest activities. Canada forest is undergoing significant changes due to climate change. The country has witnessed increased disturbance posing risks to the industry. Innovative solutions combined with scientific based policy solutions and mitigating strategies approaches are needed to help policy makers develop proper forest management. For economic benefits more innovative strategies needs to reduce production costs (Thanh and Leblon, 2011). Understanding the forest values like carbon storage, water purification and recreational use that affect the long-term sustainability of Canada forest is key to a sustainable future for Canadian forest sector (The State of Canada's Forests, 2013).
Changes in Forest Areas
Forest areas in Canada have changed over time; the global levels of production of wood are falling short of the increasing demand for wood. The world is turning to Canada because of its vast forests. Furthermore, Canada forest ecosystem is exposed to natural disturbances like insect infestation, disease outbreaks, weather events affecting the forest growth and structures. These disturbances threaten forest value especially timber, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities (The State of Canada's Forests, 2013). Natural disturbances form part of the ecosystem by maintaining biodiversity and shaping the forest structure. For sustainability, natural events are useful as it facilitates natural regeneration and recovery of the ecosystem. As much as natural disturbances are useful when left unchecked results to forest degradation. For instance, by 2011 close to 9.2 million hectares of forest tree were killed by mountain pine beetle, reducing the forest tree coverage (The State of Canada's Forests, 2013). Pine beetle spread to Canada creating risks to pine forest.
In Alberta, more than 1.3 million hectares of forest has been affected by the migration of beetles causing a major decline in tree coverage. Another threat to the forest area is the outbreaks of budworm. The last outbreak covered 50 million hectares, since 2003 the budworms affects more than 500,000 hectares of Douglas-fir forest annually (The State of Canada's Forests, 2013).
Harmful insects like the emerald borer and the pine beetles are likely to expand to the northwest forest areas. However, their survival during winter and summer might limit the expansion. In future, climate and other forest-related changes will affect the forest pathogens; as a result, the harvest will fluctuate over time. Based on these findings, harvest related disturbances are insignificant compared to the areas disturbed by insect or diseases (The State of Canada's Forests, 2013).To realize successful regeneration means forest should remain productive and also continue to provide ecosystem services especially for it habitat. Canada has realized this and has taken a different path of regenerating forests promptly to prevent further degradation. Canada is trying to break away from depending on fossil fuels, and government regulations ensure that the process of conservation is a continuous process as it sets the bar higher. To improve export of woods products, Canada harvest levels need to increase meaning that reforestation needs to be linked several aspects of its ecosystem (Avrim, 2008). For instance carbon emission and removal to the atmosphere is another important contribution to Canadian forest. Carbon emissions are useful for the natural forest ecosystem as it mitigates the effects of climate change. Canadian forest management needs to monitor the carbon emission trends and removal to anticipate the future of Canada forest. One area of interest includes optimal trade policies on biofuel considering the possible carbon leakage (Hakan & Greaker, 2012).
Forest agencies need to consider maintaining biodiversity alongside reforestation to maintain forests. However, forest managers lack information on the importance of biodiversity in Canada. Some of the biodiversity monitoring approaches have been criticized as inefficient. Policy makers are advocating for biodiversity as one of the forest sustainability strategies. Countries are revising their approach to wood extraction from the forest by paying much attention to biodiversity and ecosystem (The State of Canada's Forests , 2013).
The Forest Management Strategies (SFM)
Various international agencies have played a vital role in improving forest management. International agencies have developed the concept of sustainable forest management providing criteria and indicator guidelines needed to reform forest management systems. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, so far, has developed forest principles that are not legally binding for a global consensus on management conservation and sustainable development of all types of forest (McDonald and Lane, 2004).
These principles have increasingly provided clarity as they consistently define SFM based on conservation of biological diversity, maintaining the healthy ecosystem among other key important aspects. Analysis demonstrated that Criteria &Indicator approach is becoming a more globally acceptable strategy for achieving SFM. C&I provide guidelines for sustainable forest management at sub-national levels. These guidelines are constantly used to advise forest owners and forest managers in planning certain sustainability strategies (McDonald and Lane, 2004).
C&I are reference tools for supervising and constantly implementing innovative ways of long term sustainability. Criteria and indicator guidelines provide a legal and regulatory framework to guide legal instruments that either regulate or improve forest management. C & I also provide an economic framework for financial instruments that helps support better infrastructure to protect forests. The policy framework provides the capacity to conduct research on forest-related practices including land use as part of better forest management (McDonald and Lane, 2004).
For sustainable forestry management guidelines to be more effective, there is need to determine the environmental dependability of forest ecosystems in relation to the SFM guidelines. Until these features are harmonized, it is not easy to answer some of the questions including how much diversity needs to be embraced. In this case, forest management needs to consider risks involved when forest resources are overused. New paradigms of forest management are emerging under the Sustainable Forest Management or ecosystem management. Most countries are revising their approach to wood extraction from forest as much attention is forecast towards protection of forest biodiversity and ecosystem processes especially in developing countries based on C&I approach (McDonald and Lane, 2004).Forest Biodiversity Efforts Monitoring In Canada
In Canada, selected ecosystems ...