GREATER FUNDY ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH PROJECT

UNB Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management

Forest Management Guidelines to Protect
Native Biodiversity in the Fundy Model Forest

Approaches to the Development of Forest Management Guidelines

The development of these guidelines has gone through several stages. A research agenda was developed by the Greater Fundy Ecosystem Research Group during a series of meetings in 1991-92, and then accepted by the Model Forest Partnership. It is important to stress that this agenda was not any single researcher's personal research agenda, but rather a collective effort. Once the research began, we met yearly to present our results and to exchange information and ideas. In all cases, the researchers were asked to ensure that their work was designed to provide useful forest management prescriptions. The development of the guidelines also involved subdividing the larger research group into sub-groups, with each sub-group tasked with providing a set of recommendations on their subject area. The sub-groups then presented their findings back to the larger research group.

The guidelines presented in this document represent a consensus on the subject. In many cases, research is still on-going and most of the recommendations may be modified, or added to, in the future. We have attempted to develop a set of recommendations that is objective-oriented rather that simply restrictive. This approach was taken to allow resource managers maximum flexibility. We tried to objectively specify attributes of the forest that are needed for conservation of native biodiversity and other ecological attributes. This approach is consistent with that of the Department of Natural Resources and Energy in the Province of New Brunswick. Such a consistency was sought wherever possible, in order to simplify the approach for managers and to recognise the importance of related work already done within the province.

One new aspect to these guidelines is that they are sometimes divided by Ecological Land Classification (ELC). An ELC is the grouping of forest assemblages based on enduring features such as climate, geology, soils, and others elements of the landscape. Use of an ELC as the operating unit for forest management is an example of the coarse-filter strategy of biodiversity management (Hunter et al., 1988). The GFE research group promotes the idea of managing on the basis of these ecological units. There are essential differences between the various ecological units and these should be reflected in the objectives for a particular landscape as well as the amount and type of harvesting that occurs. In many cases, objectives need to be harmonised, as similar types of objectives can arise from different perspectives. For example, consider the objective of a minimum patch size. From the perspective of managing a given species of wildlife, such as American Marten, there might be a requirement for a minimum patch size of forest to maintain the required habitat conditions of this species. A minimum patch size of forest might also be required from the perspective of maintaining natural disturbance regimes. Wherever possible, the two perspectives have been harmonised to allow for management simplicity.

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