INTRODUCTION - LLI Status Report 2008
Introduction: Measuring whether we’re managing the forest sustainably
To keep our forests healthy, it’s important to practice good long-term management from a number of perspectives: people should be able to harvest wood and other resources from the forest, wildlife should be able to inhabit it, the forest should be able to regenerate, and so on, for many hundreds of years into the future. This is known as “sustainable forest management.”
More technically, sustainable forest management can be defined as the stewardship and use of forests and forest lands in a way, an at a rate, that maintains their biological diversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfill, now and in the future, ecological, economic, and social functions (definition adapted from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6896e/x6896e0e.htm, accessed July 27, 2008)
It’s important to able to measure whether we’re actually succeeding in practicing sustainable forest management. To do this, we use indicators. Indicators give us information about our performance -- about whether we’re reaching our goals. For example, for a healthy diet, an indicator of success might be the number of servings of vegetables consumed.
In forest management, indicators of whether we’re managing the forest sustainably include the following:
- Diversity of wildlife species
- Volume of timber harvested
- Number and severity of wildfires
- Livestock carrying capacity (forest grazing)
- Occurrence of insect infestations and other pathogens
- Rate of public participation in decision-making around forest management
Photo Credit: Mark Bradley, Jasper National Park
To measure whether the Foothills Model Forest’s landbase is being measured sustainably, the model forest and its partners developed a suite of indicators and compared them against six criteria of sustainable forest management, as set out in two landmark reports by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) (Anon. 1995 and Anon. 2003a).
In its first report (Anon. 2003b), the Foothills Model Forest provided a broad statement of forest resources and conditions within its boundaries, categorized according to the CCFM’s criteria. The current report builds on this work, providing detailed up-to-date information on the state of the forest and forest land uses by looking at core indicators.
When compared against local goals and national criteria, the current report should give readers confidence that forest resources in the Foothills Model Forest are being managed sustainably; it should also help Albertans make informed decisions about the management of their forest lands.