State of the Greater Fundy Ecosystem - Forest management planning

GREATER FUNDY ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH PROJECT

UNB Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management

State of the Greater Fundy Ecosystem

Forest Management Planning and Scenario Modelling in the Fundy Model Forest

Fundy Model Forest Management Planning Committee
Fundy Model Forest
RR#4, Aiton Road
Sussex, N.B. E0E 1P0

In cooperation with its partners, the Fundy Model Forest (FMF) has been preparing a multi-ownership sustainable forest management plan. The Management Plan for the FMF is intended to specify what forestry treatments are to be implemented, in what amounts, when and where. It also describes geographically explicit treatment schedules aimed at achieving the objectives set for specific resource values.

As a basis for preparing the Management Plan, objectives were established for every resource value of interest. Examples of values of interest that were identified include wildlife habitat, timber, water quality, and biodiversity. The design of the management strategy involves forecasting, through time, the future state of desired resource values in every forest class of stand in the forest (e.g. mature coniferous habitat or cubic meters of timber) and determining geographically explicit schedules of activities such as selection harvesting or thinning. In concert with the design of the management strategy, sets of performance indicators need to be calculated. These will inform us how the management strategy has affected resource values and will evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy in attaining set objectives (Table 1).

In May 1996, the FMF partnership held a workshop which discussed, quantified and refined several key value-related issues brought out by the partnership (Table 2). The exercise enabled management planners and GIS modellers to create some 25 specific scenarios for detailed comparison. To apply and test the scenarios, a case study area of approximately 114,782 hectares at the eastern end of the FMF was selected for modelling (Figure 1). The case study area included the Pollet River, Point Wolfe River watersheds and the headwaters of the Petitcodiac River. The ownership pattern of the case study area closely approximated the entire model forest area.

Figure 1.

In October 1996, the partnership met again to review and discuss the implications of the scenarios and to build toward a planning scenario which met the consensus approval of all stakeholders. Expected changes to existing harvest volumes from the scenarios are shown in Table 3.

Partnership Recommendations Resulting from Scenario Analysis

Buffer Strip Guidelines Surrounding Water

Participants recommended that riparian buffers of a minimum of 30 meters be applied by all land owners. It would be left up to individual landowners if they wished to exceed this minimum buffer width. J.D. Irving, for instance, is implementing a minimum buffer width of 60 m on its lands. The 5 m no harvest buffer was recommended to be dropped from the analysis, if it could be better addressed through the use of Best Management Practices. These BMPs would need to ensure that the necessary supply of large woody debris enters streams.

It was also recommended that the major areas where slopes exceeded 20% be excluded from harvesting and that the 60 m buffer begin where the slope becomes less than 20%. The BMPs or buffer zone guidelines developed by DNRE and the Clean Water Act would act as the basis for maintaining sustainable practices for the water resource.

Road Construction

It was deemed unnecessary to increase the 30 m buffer along numbered provincial highways to 60 m. Careful road construction could be implemented as BMPs and protect a number of forest values.

Vegetation and Insect Control

It was agreed that protecting the forest in event of a Spruce Budworm epidemic is necessary. It was also agreed that protection using the biological agent B.t. would be acceptable in the short term. It was recommended that the forest structure should be modified to lessen the impacts of a budworm epidemic.

There was a consensus on the acceptability of vegetation control but not on the way it is to be achieved. It was recommended that the most feasible, environmentally sensitive methods (such as manual control) be employed and that the tools only be applied in the clearcut and plant silvicultural treatments and for the planting of abandoned fields.

Populations of Plant and Animal Species

The partners accepted the need for connectivity corridors. However, it was felt that there would need to be limitations in establishing these corridors on small private woodlots, where it could involve a major portion of a woodlot owner's property.

It was also agreed that it was desirable to protect the rare and unique sites identified by the GAP analysis project.

The maintenance of 12% of each of the identified community types in a mature condition was accepted in principle. An analysis of the spatial aspects of this GFE recommendations will need to be assessed for its impacts.

The 0.5 and 1.0 km buffers suggested for Fundy NP and the three conservation areas would no longer be considered. Some other arrangement to protect the integrity of the park should be worked out with the landowners involved.

Harvesting

The principles behind the harvesting guidelines recommended by the GFE project were accepted by the partners. There was no full agreement on how these guidelines should be applied. The problems centred on those stand types that were not clearly stand replacing or gap replacing types. To help resolve the question, two new scenarios were suggested:
1. The stand types that fall in both the stand and gap replacing categories will be re-assigned by the GFE to fall in one or the other classification, and the appropriate harvest guidelines will then be applied.
2. The stand types that fall in both the stand and gap replacing categories that were identified by the land managers as candidates for selection type harvesting would be assigned to gap replacing types, and the rest would be assigned to stand replacing types.

The stand types that fall clearly in one category or the other would follow the recommended GFE harvest guidelines.

Planting

It was recommended by the partners that no new exotic species be introduced in the planting program. It was recommended that a cap be placed on the area planted to Norway Spruce that would limit it to 5 % of the area of the ecodistrict.

There was no final agreement on a planting scenario. Both scenario 7a and 7c remain on the table. Scenario 7c was modified to read: Using GFE harvest guidelines, planting is an acceptable treatment on all areas where the stocking to softwood regeneration is less than 40%.

Scenario 7a: Using GFE harvesting guidelines, planting is an acceptable treatment on areas that are unstocked to any commercial species after harvest.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT

At meetings held in 1998, landowners in the Fundy Model Forest responded favourably to many of the GFE forest biodiversity management guidelines. Implementation will proceed through the five-year and 25-year forest management plans. Some objectives, such as increasing the proportion of Cedar on the landscape, will take many years to implement. The intent and direction of landowner objectives is the key to implementing biodiversity strategies.

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