Our Forests Today

Sustainable Forest Management

The tremendous growth of the United States economy in the first quarter of the 20th century provided both markets and incentives for investment in Ontario’s forest, particularly by the pulp and paper industry. This was the beginning of the initial exploitation of the Boreal forest, and led to the earliest attempts to manage the forests on a sustainable basis for timber.

 

The purpose of this article is to look at what Ontario has done in recent years to promote sustainable forest management. The fact that Ontario’s forests go back 15,000 years doesn’t necessarily mean they will be there for another 15,000 years. Unless they are managed sustainably, they could cease to be a vital part of the province’s landscape and of people’s experience in Ontario.

Block cuts in the province's northwest quarter of the boreal forest indicates a more intensive managed forest

As noted in the article "Ontario's Forest Heritage", a conservation movement helped change public attitudes to the forest, and recent years have seen Ontario shift its forest policy to a more balanced ecological approach.

During the past two decades, Ontario has worked hard to become a world leader in sustainable forest management. In 1988, the management of timber on Crown forests was subjected to a thorough and in-depth environmental assessment, the first such comprehensive assessment of a province’s management of public forests in Canada. The Decision of the Board in 1994 approved the “undertaking” but placed a number of terms and conditions with timelines for implementation. Board hearings covered concerns raised by Aboriginal peoples, forest interest groups and the public. Issues such as clearcutting, the use of pesticides, and managing for water, wildlife, aesthetic and cultural values were addressed in the board’s decision.

 

While initially focused on timber and long-term supply, many of the assessment’s terms and conditions dealt with how forest management affected other non timber resources and values, biological diversity and the environment. The environmental approval of 1994 was extended and amended in 2003.

 

Managing our Crown forests

 

Ninety percent of forested lands in Ontario are provincially owned and known as Crown lands. All forest policies and management practices on these lands must conform to the Policy Framework for Sustainable Forests, which covers such matters as harvesting and regeneration, the management of old-growth forests and the protection and conservation of non-timber values.

 

The goal of forest sustainability is entrenched in Ontario's Crown Forest Sustainability Act (1994) and entails providing for the sustainability of Crown forests while managing them to meet social, economic and environmental needs of present and future generations. This legislation covers all aspects of forest management, including planning, operations and silviculture, timber measurement and forest information systems.

Management units in Ontario.  More information...

Most of Ontario’s Crown forests are divided into forest management units. Before any forestry activities can take place, a forest management plan must be prepared. The plan is developed by a Registered Professional Forester with the help from a multidisciplinary team and input from a Local Citizens Committee, and must follow the requirements of the Forest Management Planning Manual. This includes determining the available harvest areas and assessing criteria and indicators of sustainability that meet Canadian and International systems (the Montreal Process).

Forest companies manage Crown forests under Sustainable Forest Licences. These cover a period of twenty years and are subject to renewal every five years following a satisfactory audit report made public, following an independent third party audit. Companies are responsible for forest management and compliance with plans within their licence area and pay a stumpage charge fee to the province for the right to harvest timber.

 

Parks and protected areas

 

Ontario’s balanced ecological approach to the forest has been reflected in a major focus on setting aside significant areas of productive forest land as parks and protected areas. In these areas, logging, mining and hydro-electric development are for the most part excluded. 

 

In some cases, proposed areas for protection were within existing areas licensed to forest companies. Since their removal would affect timber supply, representatives of the forest industry, the environmental community (Partnership for Public Lands) and the government met in 1999 to try to resolve this issue. The result was the Ontario Forest Accord, a ground-breaking agreement that created a process for setting aside more parks and protected areas in the future and that promoted studies on ways to increase forest productivity.

 

Since 1999, about 2,459,400 hectares have been added to Ontario’s system of parks and protected areas. The system now protects 8,987,300 hectares, and forests make up 5,964,400 hectares of that total.

Hooker Lake near Sioux Lookout, is reserved from harvesting because it lies within Ontario's expanded park system

Our legislation and policy framework

 

Ontario’s stringent legislative and policy framework to safeguard forest sustainability means that forest companies operating in the province are well-placed to meet the standards set by any third party forest certification system. In fact, the province is moving to require that all Sustainable Forest Licence holders must be certified to an accepted performance standard by the end of 2007. This is complemented by similar requirements from the Forest Products Association of Canada that its members meet the standards of sustainable forest management of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA-SFM), the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) by the same date. Currently 13 million hectares are already certified to one of these standards.

 

The province’s commitment to sustainable forest management is also strongly supported by forestry science and innovation. MNR scientists work closely with the Canadian Forest Service, universities, forest industry and other organizations, to help forest managers take a lead role in developing new approaches and practices in their forests.

 

Ontario is committed to being a world leader in sustainable forest management

New technologies are used to gain better information about both timber and non-timber values and to adapt practices to conserve those values at both forest and landscape levels. 

 

As well, two forests – one in the boreal forest (Lake Abitibi Model Forest) and the other in southeastern Ontario (Eastern Ontario Model Forest) – are members of the Canadian Model Forest Program. With one located on Crown forests and the other in an area made up primarily of private lands, the model forests have been the source of many cooperative studies and technology transfer in the past two decades.

 

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