R11 Forest Management Plan: Five-Year Stewardship Report December 2012 Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Forestry Division Clearwater Forest Area Rocky Mountain House, AB Five Year Stewardship Report – R11 Forest Management Plan Acknowledgements This report was made possible through the hard work and contributions of numerous people as noted below: Project Leads: Kevin Gagne, Forestry Division, Rocky Mountain House, AB Rebecca Heemeryck, Forestry Division, Rocky Mountain House, AB Writer/ Editor: Elizabeth Anderson, Private Consultant, Crowsnest Pass, AB Contributors and Reviewers: Ryan Jillard, GIS Unit, Rocky Mountain House, AB David Finn, Forestry Division, Rocky Mountain House, AB Anne Hubbs, Fish and Wildlife Division, Rocky Mountain House, AB Kristofer Heemeryck, Forestry Division, Rocky Mountain House, AB Shevenell Webb, Alberta Conservation Association, Sherwood Park, AB Photo Credits: Cover photos were provided by Robert Anderson - Alberta Conservation Association (hiking trail), David Finn – Forestry Division (close-up burn, landscape burn), and Kevin Gagne – Forestry Division (forest thinning, bighorn sheep). Credits for other photos throughout the report are located with the photos. Suggested Citation: Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. 2012. R11 Forest Management Plan: Five-Year Stewardship Report. Forestry Division, Clearwater Forest Area, Rocky Mountain House, AB. Five Year Stewardship Report – R11 Forest Management Plan Executive Summary The period from 2007 to 2012 marked the first forest management activities conducted in the R11 Forest Management Unit under the direction of the 2007 R11 Forest Management Plan. The R11 FMP delineated a public accountability and reporting process to assess management effectiveness every five years by documenting progress toward plan indicators and targets and integrating updated data, models, and scientific knowledge through minor revisions. Stewardship Reports are the primary tool for assessing progress and communicating this information. The R11 FMP embraces an overarching management approach of emulating natural disturbances and processes, with prescribed fire chosen as the primary management tool. However, R11- specific knowledge of historic fire regimes or altered fire regimes resulting from fire suppression activities was sparse. As one of the first major tasks initiated after FMP approval, ASRD1 commissioned M.-P. Rogeau to conduct an in-depth fire history and fire regime study for the R11 FMU to better understand characteristics of the current altered fire regime, characteristics of the historic fire regime, and the degree of departure from historic conditions. Using 1961-2008 occurrence records from the Forest Protection Branch, Rogeau found multiple recent fire regimes based on natural subregions. Screening of aerial photographs from circa 1950 and fire history field data from tree rings, fire scars, and fire releases also showed multiple historic fire regimes based on elevation (as captured by natural subregion) and fuel continuity. Fire regime simulations were conducted using STANDOR, a landscape disturbance model, to simulate fire ignitions and growth patterns. Outputs from the model identified the parameters under which fire should be reintroduced on the landscape (e.g., areas of shortest mean fire return interval, yearly disturbance rates, natural range of variation around stand age, fire size, fire frequency). A fire regime departure analysis compared the modelling results and recent fire regime results to help prioritize the fire regime regions in greatest need of treatment. Approximately half of the 47 unique objectives identified within the R11 Forest Management Plan to conserve ecological, economic, and social values within the landbase have direct relevance to planning and managing fires within the FMU. Four fundamental indicators and associated targets require revision in light of the R11 Fire Regime Analyses: these indicators deal with treatment size and residual unburned area within a burn, stand age distribution, rate of disturbance, and use of natural wildfires. In addition to the completion of an R11 FMU fire regime study, several other notable achievements were recorded over this five-year reporting period including completion of the large 5700 ha Upper Saskatchewan Unit 1 prescribed burn that was generally well received by local residents, business owners, and visiting public, 1 The original R11 Forest Management Plan was prepared by Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (ASRD). In May 2012, this ministry was merged with Alberta Environment to create Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD). As the original FMP and the majority of monitoring activities during reporting period were conducted under ASRD, this nomenclature will be applied throughout this Five5-Year Stewardship Report. Future stewardship reports will employ the new ministry name. Five Year Stewardship Report – R11 Forest Management Plan completion of pre-suppression plans and FireSmart harvesting/vegetation management around Nordegg and the Bighorn reserve, implementation of joint operations and/or ongoing relationship building with other agencies or adjacent land managers, identification of several previously unknown whitebark and limber pine trees/stands, significant progress towards setting targets for key wildlife indicators including ungulates and grizzly bears, and creation of a short interpretive hiking trail as one component of several communication and outreach activities that provided information on R11 FMP activities to stakeholders and the public. To summarize progress in meeting the 72 indicator targets during this reporting period, a report card was generated. Grades were assigned as follows: E = Excellent success in meeting target, A = Target met adequately or as best possible given knowledge or logistical constraints (i.e., met with room for improvement), NY = Target not yet met, though progress may be evident, and NA = Target still under development, will be assessed at longer intervals, or will be assessed once Clearwater Landscape Fire Management Strategy is in place. Overall, 75% of the indicators were assigned adequate or excellent success in meeting the outlined target (i.e., the grade distribution was as follows: 35 E, 19 A, 5 NY, 8 NA, 5 defer to other indicators). Difficulties, particularly with respect to data limitations, were also encountered when considering some indicators during treatment implementation or when assessing the indicators for the Stewardship Report. The original R11 FMP planning guidelines specified that indicators must be derived from currently available government data. Some indicators have not yet been adequately tracked due to the lack of existing data (e.g., breeding habitat/locations of sensitive species such as long-toed salamanders or Harlequin ducks, number of tourism-related operators working within the R11 FMU, harvest of non-timber products). Financial and logistical constraints have prevented the design and implementation of other supplementary data identified in the original R11 FMP (e.g., training of forestry personnel and contractors in rare plant identification, visitor survey to determine experiences). The next five-year reporting period for the R11 FMP will continue to build on the successes noted here while integrating the fire regime information into treatment planning and implementation. Five Year Stewardship Report – R11 Forest Management Plan Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 2 R11 Fire Regime Analysis .................................................................................................... 2 2.1 Recent Fire Regimes ....................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Historical Fire Regimes .................................................................................................. 7 2.2.1 Historical Aerial Photograph Screening ..................................................................... 9 2.2.1.1 Fire Regime Parameters ...................................................................................... 9 2.2.1.2 Topographic Parameters ................................................................................... 10 2.2.1.3 Associations between Fire Regime and Topographic Parameters .................... 11 2.2.2 Field Data Collection ................................................................................................ 11 2.2.3 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 14 2.3 Fire Regime Simulations............................................................................................... 14 2.3.1 Six Fire Regime Regions .......................................................................................... 15 2.3.2 Modelling Results ..................................................................................................... 16 2.3.2.1 Fire Size Distribution ........................................................................................ 16 2.3.2.2 Age Class Distribution ...................................................................................... 17 2.3.2.3 Mean Fire Return Interval ................................................................................. 18 2.3.2.4 Fire Cycle .........................................................................................................