Principles of Forest Management
to Conserve Biodiversity

Before presenting any forest management rules, the GFE Research Group developed a set of principles that were seen as fundamental to understanding and managing the forest as an ecosystem. These are as follows:

1) The composition and structure of natural forest stands in the GFE tend to be more complex when contrasted with stands managed intensively for wood fibre production. Fibre-based forest management - which can involve stander tending, herbicide use, and plantations - generally eliminates or reduces the lifetimes of complex early and late seral forest stages. This may be especially true for late successional forest stages. It is likely that the percentage of many mature and overmature forest communities on the landscape is now much smaller than in pre-European times.

2) Forest disturbances affect nutrient budgets, microclimates and hydrology on both a site, watershed, and regional basis. Forestry operations have the potential to affect nutrient budgets, microclimates, and hydrology beyond the normal ranges of variation found in natural forest succession.

3) Management to protect native biodiversity must be applied at a variety of scales. At a landscape scale, management must be applied to ecologically-based units, such as watersheds and ecological land classification divisions, and not administrative units (e.g. sub-licence boundaries). Not all elements of biodiversity need to be maintained on every hectare. Rather, the focus should be to protect healthy, viable populations of native species on the larger landscape.

4) At a regional scale, conservation of biodiversity requires permanent networks of protected areas that are connected by corridors acting as functional linkages between populations. This need is based on the precautionary principle of conservation management wherein our management actions are tempered by caution and the ability to respond to change. Protected area networks should be a combination of large representative areas and also smaller areas established to conserve sensitive and unique sites.

5) In addition to the direct effects of wood harvesting, intensive forest management has significant indirect impacts. Prominent among these is the creation of road access networks. Road networks tend to fragment habitat, change animal movement patterns, alter microclimates, provide a mechanism for the invasion of exotic species, and modify surface drainage patterns. The nature and duration of these secondary impacts vary, but they can have significant effects on native species. Also, the road network allows for increase in the exploitation of wildlife through hunting, trapping, fishing, and other activities.

6) Standing dead and fallen woody material provides habitat for many species and is necessary to sustain elements of biological diversity. Some plantation forestry practices (i.e. whole tree removal, crushed site preparation) can greatly reduce the amounts of cavity trees, snags and woody debris on the forest floor. It may be possible to ameliorate this impact by altered harvest practices.

7) Much of the Fundy Model Forest area has undergone significant ecological stress. The most productive lands have been converted to agriculture and housing. Native species, such as Woodland Caribou and Grey Wolf, have been lost and some have been reduced in ecological importance (e.g., American Beech trees). Whole communities have also been affected because of human caused impacts. In many cases ecological restoration is required to restore these components of natural heritage.

8) Standing dead and fallen woody material provides habitat for many species and is necessary to sustain elements of biological diversity. Some plantation forestry practices (i.e. whole tree removal, crushed site preparation) can greatly reduce the amounts of cavity trees, snags and woody debris on the forest floor. It may be possible to ameliorate this impact by altered harvest practices.

9) Much of the Fundy Model Forest area has undergone significant ecological stress. The most productive lands have been converted to agriculture and housing. Native species, such as Woodland Caribou and Grey Wolf, have been lost and some have been reduced in ecological importance (e.g., American Beech trees). Whole communities have also been affected because of human caused impacts. In many cases ecological restoration is required to restore these components of natural heritage.

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