Forest Investment Account, Land Based Investment Program Resource Information Component – Monitoring Activity Area Progress Report – 2009/10 Western Forest Strategy Adaptive Management Summary W.J. Beese, MF, RPF Forest Ecologist J.A. Deal, RPBio, RPF Strategic Planning Biologist March 2010 Corporate Forestry 118 – 1334 Island Highway Campbell River, BC V9W 8C9 Acknowledgements Our sincere thanks go to all of the managers, foresters, engineers, loggers and support personnel that take the ideas in the Western Forest Strategy and put them into practice. We thank the senior management of Western Forest Products for having the vision to carry on with this strategy through difficult economic conditions. The authors are especially grateful to Glen Dunsworth, Fred Bunnell, Dave Huggard and Laurie Kremsater for laying the foundation for the Adaptive Management Program, and to Jeff Sandford for his important role in field coordination and database development. We also thank Nick Smith, Ken Zielke and Bryce Bancroft for their close collaboration on this effort, the many project leaders whose work is presented, and participants in various Working Groups over the years. We also thank Sue McDonald, Pat Bryant, Michael Fowler, Annette van Niejenhuis and Kathy Wood for their significant contribution “behind the scenes” to keeping many projects running smoothly. Executive Summary Western Forest Products is implementing a forest management strategy to sustain biological diversity within the company’s tenures. The Western Forest Strategy (WFS) has three broad goals: 1. Represent the full range of ecosystems within the non-harvestable landbase to maintain lesser known species and ecological functions. 2. Maintain structural attributes of older forests distributed across the landscape and in harvested areas to support biological richness. 3. Sustain productive populations of forest-dwelling species over time. The WFS uses landscape zoning, variable retention and adaptive management to achieve these goals while balancing other ecological, social and economic objectives. Because the effectiveness of variable retention and broad landscape zoning in maintaining biodiversity is largely untested, “adaptive management” is a key component of the WFS. Adaptive management (AM) is a structured approach to learning from operational practices, monitoring and experiments to provide feedback to management and continual improvement. This report summarizes progress on implementation of this strategy from 2005 through 2009, including significant findings from the monitoring and adaptive management program that supports the strategy. The WFS made significant progress toward achieving its goals: 1. Ecosystem Representation • We combined spatial data from the three legacy company tenures that are now covered by the WFS, including Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping • We initiated a new analysis of representation across company tenures to be completed in the second phase of this project 2. Maintaining Old Growth Forests and Structural Attributes • We established OGMAs as part of landscape unit planning • We continued to implement the variable retention approach to forest harvesting, including us of the retention silvicultural system for the majority of the company’s harvesting over the past five years • We monitored forest structural attributes on experimental Variable Retention Adaptive Management (VRAM) and operational sites 3. Sustaining Species • We conducted monitoring and research projects on forest birds, amphibians, gastropods (slugs and snails), ectomycorrhizal fungi, carabid beetles, vascular plants and lichens • We continued development of a species accounting system for monitoring groups of species with different habitat needs 4. Adaptive Management (AM) and Monitoring • We revised the forest strategy, retention guidelines and zoning framework following changes in company ownership and tenure • We established a new Forest Strategy working group, developed retention guidelines and training materials, and conducted training sessions ii • We monitored retention system implementation levels and established new standards for spatial identification of long-term retention • We continued with species and structure monitoring on operational cutblocks and nine VRAM experimental areas • We monitored the impacts of retention on forest growth and yield, windthrow and small streams The forest strategy has helped the company achieve and maintain CSA Sustainable Forest Management Certification for several forest operations, supports marketing of WFP’s forest products and helps us maintain public support. This report summarizes progress on implementation of the strategy and monitoring findings from the past decade. Part II will present results from an ecological representation analysis, describe how we have used the adaptive management process and present a 5-year plan for 2010 – 2014. iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................ I EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................II BACKGROUND..........................................................................................................................................................1 RATIONALE FOR THE LANDSCAPE ZONING APPROACH ...........................................................................3 OBJECTIVES..............................................................................................................................................................4 RATIONALE AND EXPECTED OUTCOMES..................................................................................................................4 METHODS...................................................................................................................................................................5 STUDY AREAS...........................................................................................................................................................5 ANALYSIS OF ECOSYSTEM REPRESENTATION .........................................................................................................5 STAND-LEVEL RETENTION OF HABITAT ATTRIBUTES ..............................................................................................6 REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF SPECIES MONITORING AND RESEARCH.......................................................................7 REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF SILVICULTURE MONITORING AND RESEARCH..............................................................8 DEVELOPMENT OF A REVISED AM PROGRAM AND 5-YEAR PLAN (PHASE II) .........................................................8 DATA MANAGEMENT .................................................................................................................................................9 RESULTS...................................................................................................................................................................10 REVISED FOREST STRATEGY.................................................................................................................................10 IMPLEMENTATION MONITORING..............................................................................................................................11 ANALYSIS OF ECOSYSTEM REPRESENTATION .......................................................................................................15 STAND-LEVEL RETENTION OF HABITAT ATTRIBUTES ............................................................................................15 REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF SPECIES MONITORING AND RESEARCH.....................................................................18 Species Accounting System ....................................................................................................................................... 18 Overview of Broad Conclusions from Species Monitoring ..................................................................................... 18 Vertebrate Species Monitoring ................................................................................................................................... 19 Invertebrate Species Monitoring ................................................................................................................................23 Vegetation Species Monitoring................................................................................................................................... 25 Montane Alternative Silvicultural Systems (MASS) – vegetation studies............................................................. 26 Other biodiversity studies at MASS include birds and canopy insects................................................................. 27 Species at Risk Monitoring ......................................................................................................................................... 27 REVIEW AND SUMMARY OF SILVICULTURE MONITORING AND RESEARCH............................................................29 Variable Retention Windthrow Monitoring ................................................................................................................ 30 Growth and Yield — Edge Regeneration Studies ................................................................................................... 32 Montane Alternative Silvicultural