Indicators of sustainable forest management in a changing climate

The theme of sustainability is now woven throughout Canadian forest management and policy. Indeed, Canada was an early adopter of sustainability in forestry, largely through a series of initiatives led by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers’ (CCFM). One such initiative was development and application of a national suite of criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management (C&I-SFM). With appropriate data associated with each of the chosen indicators, the C&I-SFM serve up a comprehensive picture of forest and forest-sector progress on the road called sustainable development. For almost two decades, C&I-SFM have been applied at a wide range of levels, from international to national to provincial to local. The national set for Canada has been revised once (2003), and a second revision is likely imminent. In the meantime, the CCFM, in its 2008 vision for Canada’s forests, stated that all initiatives related to SFM must consider the implications of a changing climate. In the context of a revision to the C&I-SFM, the question becomes this: what are the implications of a changing climate for the ongoing robustness and utility of Canada’s national C&I-SFM? This report attempts to address that question. The approach consisted of devising a systematic set of questions, in other words, an evaluation protocol, to put to each indicator. Some questions pertained to the indicator’s relationships with other indicators in the set, some to the expected influences of climate change on the entity represented by the indicator, and finally some that would help us understand the indicator’s ongoing relevance to SFM under a changing climate. The research team consisted of experienced forestry professionals and researchers who applied their collective professional judgement, as informed by a thorough canvassing of relevant literature, in answering the questions and developing recommendations for each of the indicators. The preliminary findings, and indeed the entire report, were peer-reviewed by experts from across Canada. Forty-six indicators were examined using the evaluation protocol. The findings are summarized in the main report and detailed in a companion report. The evaluated indicators were assigned to one of three general outcomes. Twelve indicators were considered to be entirely independent of climate change, meaning that climate change is not expected to affect the phenomena represented by these indicators. The utility and robustness of all the remaining 34 indicators was considered to be influenced by a changing climate. For 23 of these, the team recommends no change to the indicator (unmodified category), and for 11 of them, changes are recommended. Initially it was thought that a potential outcome of the evaluation could be outright abandonment of an indicator in the event that the team found its ongoing utility to be seriously eroded by climate change. However, none of the indicators was found in this situation. Finally, he study identified six new indicators that could help provide a climate-change lens for monitoring and managing forests sustainably in Canada. These are: a) Connectivity of protected areas; b) Proportion of tenured forest area with seed transfer guidelines that account for climate change; c) Average, minimum, and maximum temperature d) Area of Crown forest with assisted migration initiatives; e) Rate and form of precipitation; and f) Carbon emissions avoided through product substitution The study concludes with a set of recommendations that should help improve the overall utility of the C&I-SFM, especially in the context of a changing climate. These recommendations address: (a) moving from predominantly retrospective analysis using C&I-SFM to a balance of retrospective and prospective analysis; (b) linking C&I-SFM much mor strongly and directly into forest management and policy processes; (c) undertaking analytical work using a framework of complex adaptive systems; (d) making explicit consideration of climate change in all forest management and policy decisions; and (e) sector-wide collaboration in ongoing improvement to and application of the C&I-SFM. The report concludes by reminding readers that C&I-SFM are anecessary element of the SFM enterprise. Progress is nigh impossible without using them. Confidence in such progress is indeed impossible withoutthem. It is clear that climate change will affect the entire forest sector, sometimes in insidious ways, sometimes in abrupt and obvious ways, and sometimes even in helpful ways. Considering the complex manner in which climate change will interact with other human influences on forests and the sector, incisive cumulative effects assessment will become increasingly important. Rigorous application of C&I-SFM will help develop the insight needed to assess the real prospects for SFM in Canada under achanging climate.