FORESTRY AND LOGGING IN CANADA

WHAT IS FORESTRY? Creating, managing, using, and conserving

forests in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit.

Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands.

PLANTATION 1 type of tree is planted Trees are planted in optimal rows to allow for the

most amount of growth in a given amount of space.

Trees are well maintained and tracked in their growth.

All trees can be removed once harvest takes place.

The goal is to be able to replant afterwards.

NATURAL STAND A natural section of forest Many different trees can grow here Harvest of trees can be in a few ways:

Only removing 1 type of tree Only removing trees of a certain height or size Clear-cutting all the trees

The goal is not always to regrow the plot of land.

GOALS AND CHALLENGES The main goal of forestry is to create and

implement systems that allow forests to continue to be a sustainable provision of environmental supplies and services.

The challenge of forestry is to create systems that are socially accepted while sustaining the resource and any other resources that might be affected.

Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important component of the biosphere and therefore a balance must be reached.

VOCABULARY OF FORESTRY Silviculture is the growing and tending of trees

and forests. A practitioner of forestry is known as a forester. The word "forestry" can also refer to a forest

itself, or the practice of removing trees from a forest.

A stand is a large group of trees.

WHAT CAN FORESTERS DO? Foresters work for the timber industry,

government agencies, conservation groups, local authorities, urban parks boards, citizens' associations, and private landowners.

Foresters can work in tree nurseries growing seedlings for woodland creation or regeneration projects.

Foresters may also work with tree genetics to help combat disease and insect infestation.

Industrial foresters work on large scale harvesting and replanting.

Urban foresters manage trees in urban green spaces.

TODAY In an effort to keep forestry as sustainable as

possible, most forestry companies will send a lot of time researching the management of forest ecosystems and genetic improvement of tree species and varieties.

They are also trying to find better methods for the planting and protecting trees for future generations to use.

THIRD PARTY CERTIFICATIONS

In many regions the forest industry is of major ecological, economic, and social importance.

Third-party certification systems are independent companies that make sure that logging companies and the government are following good forest stewardship (taking care of forests) sustainable forestry.

Before 1990, many people were unhappy with the deforestation or clear-cutting of area and were concerned about how resources were being used.

FORESTRY PRACTICES In areas with lots of trees, foresters must be

careful in how they harvest as trees prevent serious soil erosion and even landslides.

If harvesting of trees is going to be taking place in an area that can be susceptible to erosion, forestry companies must stabilize the soil with rocks and mesh before removing trees.

FORESTRY PRACTICES – THINNING Thinning is the selective removal of trees from a

stand. The goal is to improve the growth rate or health

of the remaining trees. Overcrowded trees are under stress from their

close neighbors and may not grow as well. Crowding causes trees to become more

susceptible to disease, insect infestation, extreme temperatures and droughts.

Trees can be thinned through removing trees that are unsuitable for harvest, through chemicals such as round up being injected into the tree.

FORESTRY PRACTICES – CONTROLLED BURNING Fire is part of the natural process of forest

management. It ensures that a dying forest can be renewed into a better and more viable forest.

However, humans are impatient and can’t always wait for a lightning strike to cause a fire.

Intentional fires are set in the cooler months by fire control authorities.

Controlled burning allows less profitable trees to be burnt, while allowing germination of other trees. This renews the forest for future growth.

BACK BURNING If a scheduled controlled burn is to take place

where there is a lot of dead flammable material, such as dried leaves, foresters will back burn.

Small controlled fires will be started in various areas.

These are closely monitored and are maintained in small spaces.

When the large fire is ready to be lit, there is less of chance of it becoming out of control because there is less to burn.

FIRES IN FLORIDA

In 1998, many foresters wanted to start small amounts of back burning due to large amounts of dry materials around homes in Florida.

However, many homeowners complained about the small fires and they were quickly ceased.

A drought came along and catastrophic wildfires burned numerous homes.

If the homeowners had allowed the back burning to take place, the wildfires would not have been a problem and would have been quickly put out.

FELLING Cutting down individual trees in large areas. These trees may be ready to harvest before the

rest of the stand, they can be diseased or be pulled to do research about the stand.

Individual loggers will work with axes or chainsaws to remove the individual tree.

TOTAL ALLOWABLE CUT When Third Party Certification companies survey a

stand of trees to be cut, they take in factors such as number of trees at maturity, diversity of trees present and the overall economic needs of the timber company.

The goal should always be to remove enough trees to make a profit, but leave enough behind or leave the stand in a way that it can be replanted.

Total Allowable Cut determines how much wood (not necessarily how many trees) can be removed from a stand.

Companies who go over their Total Allowable Cut can be fined.

LOGGING PRACTICES While forestry involves many different jobs and practices,

the act of logging is a bit different. Logging is the cutting, skidding (taking branches off of

trunks, then making them into planks or boards), on-site processing, and loading of trees to be transported.

Essentially logging is taking the tree from the forest and to the saw mill or lumber yard to be sold or processed.

Illegal logging does exist where companies act without a Third Party Certification or individuals simply go and cut down trees. This is also called timber theft.

Illegal logging is especially hard on the environment as many ‘timber thieves’ will destroy forests with trucks and ATVs to get to trees, they will cut down engdangered species that are rare or as risk, or simply take out way more trees than what is sustainable for a forest.

HIGH GRADING

Another types of illegal logging practice is called high grading.

This is when a company goes into a stand and only cuts those trees with the highest value and leaves trees with a much lower value, that may be diseased or malformed.

This removes all healthy trees from a stand and leave the stand very little chance to regenerate in a healthy way for the future.

They are essentially destroying any chance of that stand rejuvenating itself naturally.

CLEAR CUTTING Clear cutting is a harvest method that removes

essentially all the standing trees in a selected area. Clear cutting may not always be a ‘bad’ idea. If a forest is generally unhealthy and needs to start

completely from scratch, clear cutting is an option. This allows new trees to be planted and a healthy forest to eventually grow where an unhealthy forest was.

Deforestation, also similar to clear cutting is much different. All trees are removed from a healthy forest and outside factors, such as erosion and wildlife habitat are not taken into consideration.

Deforestation usually occurs when there is no intention to re-plant because the area will be used for other purposes, such as housing and buildings.

SHELTER WOOD CUTTING A system where over time, taller trees are

removed in a series of cuts. This creates an even canopy over the forest,

and creates a new, even-aged stand under the shelter of remaining trees.

GROUP/SINGLE SELECTIVE CUTTING A type of cutting that can be difficult to maintain as trees

are selected based on their age. It is beneficial to the ecological health of the forest because

uneven-aged forests (or forest with many different aged trees in it) generally exhibit higher levels of vertical difference in heights of trees, which is key for many species of birds and mammals.

Also aids forest soils as it protects it from nutrient loss, erosion and soil compaction and the rapid loss of organic material.

The most common type of selection system is single-tree selection, in which scattered individual trees of different ages, whose canopies are not touching, are harvested.

This type of selection system generally produces small canopy openings which allows for new growth.

Group selection is designed to mimic larger disasters in the forest such as mass disease or forest fire. These patches of open canopy can up to 2 acres in size.

SEED TREE CUTTING Seed Tree cutting involves removing most trees

from a stand and leaving only a few trees behind to produce seed for regeneration.

This evens out the age of the forest. This method is used for regenerating trees that

grow well in direct sunlight such as pine trees.

PATCH CUT CUTTING Small areas of forest

are completely clearcutted.

Patch cuts are too small to be considered clearcuts, and are instead considered a form of selection cut.

This shifts the advantage from the shade intolerant species to shade tolerant species.

UNDERWATER LOGGING Not all logging needs to be on land. Forests can be submerged under water from

damming to create reservoirs. The trees will die but the wood is preserved. Loggers use special underwater machinery to cut

the trees and then floated up to the surface. A related form of logging consists of salvaging

logs which loggers have abandoned after they became waterlogged and sank.

This activity can be quite profitable, because sunk logs can be decades-old trees that extremely large in size and are species difficult or impossible to find in their natural habitat.

Ootsa Lake in British Columbia, Canada, are notable examples where timber recovery has been needed to remove underwater forests.