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Free-Growing Policy and Climate Change. Alex Woods, Regional Pathologist, NIFR, MOFR. How are free-growing stands doing?. E-Squared Free-Growing Project Overall Objective:
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Free-Growing Policy and Climate Change Alex Woods, Regional Pathologist, NIFR, MOFR
E-Squared Free-Growing Project Overall Objective: To test if the Free-Growing declaration point-in-time assessment is an accurate predictor of future stand productivity and if the assumptions of stand performance are valid.
Lakes Okanagan Strathcona
Results: Forest Health/Free Growing Lakes TSA 18% of Free-growing stands in the Lakes TSA no longer contain the minimum 700 fgsph based on the LCL rule.
The Basic Foundations • The marriage of free-growing and the BEC classification system has lead to a sophisticated ecosystem-based forest management policy framework in BC.
The Basic Foundations • The ability of licensees to fulfill their basic obligation of reforestation to create free-growing stands is based on a stable timber supply, a competitive industry and a profitable marketplace.
A free-growing designation pre-supposes that young trees will continue to grow and thrive in a relatively stable environment…
“Do not mess around with details. Consider that within an 80-year rotation the environmental conditions on Elsemere Island are predicted to be suitable for growing trees!” Richard Hebda, 2007
Timber Supply and the Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation in British Columbia: 2007 Update Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch “Given the amount of regeneration that will be needed, the risk of future beetle outbreaks and a warming climate being a possibility, short-term silvicultural practices will have a large influence on forest conditions in the mid and long-term.”
Future Forests Ecosystems Initiative Objective #5 . Adapt the forest and range management framework to maintain and enhance ecological resilience and ecosystem services, products and benefits under changing ecological conditions Strategy to Achieve that Objective: Determine which aspects of forest and range management framework should be adapted, and how, in response to climate change.
Free Growing = Proactive? = Resiliency? • A results-based policy framework with free-growing policy at its core is by nature re-active. • Management choices made in order to cost effectively achieve the result of “free-growing” are not necessarily the same choices that would be made in order to make a resilient stand capable of coping with the effects of climate change.
Is it time to examine Free-Growing Policy in light of Climate Change?