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There is an increasing interest in mixed conifer-broadleaf stands as a way to increase the diversity and productivity of managed forests. This study examined the impacts of varying densities of planted broadleaf trees on conifer performance, total stand productivity, and understory plant cover 20 years after stand establishment. The study took place in the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. It used a randomized complete block design to compare treatments containing low, moderate, or high broadleaf densities added to a constant conifer density. Each block contained a conifer-only plot as a control. Conifers were composed of equal amounts of western hemlock, western redcedar, and Douglas-fir. Broadleaves were composed of either red alder or paper birch. We found that conifer volume was significantly lower in most broadleaf treatments relative to the control, due to lower hemlock and redcedar volumes. Douglas-fir, on the other hand, had a higher volume—albeit not significant—in the broadleaf treatments. There were no significant differences in total stand volume between any of the treatments and the control. Shrub cover was significantly higher in the low and high alder treatments relative to the control, but there were no differences in shrub cover between birch treatments and the control. The results suggest that low alder density provides a good balance of conifer yield and understory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Old growth is disappearing globally, with implications for biodiversity, forest resilience, and carbon storage; yet uncertainty remains about how much exists, partly because assessments stratify ecosystems differently, sometimes obscuring relevant patterns. This paper compares portrayals of British Columbia's (BC) old-growth forest stratified in two ways: by biogeoclimatic variant, as per policy, and by relative site productivity. Our analyses confirm provincial government claims that about a quarter of BC's forests are old growth but find that most of this area has low realized productivity, including subalpine and bog forests, and that less than 1% is highly productive old growth, growing large trees. Within biogeoclimatic variant, nearly half of high-productivity forest landscapes have less than 1% of the expected area of old forest. Low-productivity ecosystems are over-represented in protected forest. We suggest that the experiment of managing old growth solely by biogeoclimatic variant has failed and that current forest policy, in combination with timber harvesting priorities, does not maintain representative ecosystems, counter to the intent of both policy and international conventions. Stratifying old growth by relative productivity within biogeoclimatic variant seems an appropriate method to portray ecosystem representation, potentially increasing the probability of maintaining ecosystem resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative natural resource governance is increasingly relied upon to resolve conflicts, generate social and ecological benefits, and increase implementation of decisions. Trust is widely recognized as critical to successful collaborative natural resource governance; however, the multidimensional nature of trust has been underexplored in this context, and few studies specifically address collaborations involving Indigenous Peoples. Literature on collaborative governance involving Indigenous Peoples emphasizes issues of power-sharing, participation, and intercultural purpose and insights into how trust created with these considerations in mind have the potential to improve processes and outcomes. This paper used a case study of collaborative forest governance on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago located off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, to identify linkages between power-sharing and individual, interpersonal, and institutional influences on trust. Collaborative forest resource governance on Haida Gwaii formally began following signing of the Strategic Land Use Agreement (2007) and the Kunst'aa guu-Kunst'aayah Reconciliation Protocol (2009) and had led the Haida to achieve several of their goals for resource management. The research linked theoretical and empirical literature on collaborative governance and trust with empirical evidence gathered from 19 semi-structured interviews with current and former members of the Haida Gwaii Management Council and the Solutions Table and identified five individual influences, five interpersonal influences, and four institutional influences on trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Government of British Columbia (BC) introduced the Community Forest Agreement Program in 1998, it permitted a range of governance structures to allow flexibility and to learn which structures might be most appropriate for this new form of forest tenure. One structure that became fairly common was collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. This paper characterizes and analyzes the advantages of this collaborative governance model in three ways, identifying (1) what benefits this model entails, (2) how these are illustrated in three different community forests, and (3) how these forms of collaboration fit into a co-management spectrum. Because some of these benefits involve communities having greater degrees of power in forest governance, the model invites a consideration of the types of decision-making power experienced by Indigenous communities partnering or collaborating in BC community forests, as well as the types and range of benefits for all parties emerging from these collaborations. Fourteen indicators of the benefits of collaboration are identified, building on the discovery of five new benefits heretofore unrecognized in the literature. These understandings permit a more nuanced assessment of this particular type of co-management, leading to the generation of three new, broader hypotheses regarding the conditions that support co-management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the practices of the value-added wood products industry in British Columbia (BC) with respect to innovativeness using the results of an online survey. The survey employed an indirect self-evaluation scale to assess the propensity to create and (or) adopt new products, processes, and business systems. Using chain of custody certification as an example of business systems innovation, this study also investigated the attitudes of the value-added wood products manufacturers, who were already certified or who may become certified, towards innovation in this form. Results show that the respondents rated themselves as more innovative with respect to business systems innovation compared with product and process innovations. Overall, innovation levels were low in the BC value-added wood products sector, a result which was confirmed in the case of chain of custody certification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera, Curculionidae), a native insect of North America, periodically reaches population sizes that cause serious economic impact to the forest industry in western North America. The most recent outbreak in British Columbia (BC), Canada, which began in the late 1990s, is only now (2015) abating, after causing unprecedented tree mortality in lodgepole pine ( Pinus contorta Douglas ex. Loudon) forests. In this paper, we make use of permanent research plots to report on the condition of lodgepole pine forests in the Chilcotin Plateau of central BC, which underwent two fully documented mountain pine beetle outbreaks. In this region, the first outbreak started in the late 1970s and lasted until the mid-1980s; the second outbreak began in the early 2000s and ended in 2010. We measured the impacts of these outbreaks in terms of tree mortality and describe the characteristics of the legacies that remain following these outbreaks, including survivors in various canopy layers and levels of existing and new regeneration. We provide evidence in support of the existence of postdisturbance legacies that classify into five distinct stand structure types. Abundant regeneration and surviving intermediate canopy layers in most stands indicate that management actions to restock pine stands in this area will not likely be necessary. The information provided by this study is important for estimating future forest development and timber supply and for forest planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercial forestry has played an important role in the Canadian economy. Yet, First Nations (FNs) communities have not shared equitably in the benefits. Since 2002, the government of British Columbia (BC) has actively sought to address this inequity by increasing the volume of forest harvesting tenures to FNs. The rationale is that rights to harvest will also enhance economic and then social outcomes, as well as address broader legal and political disputes. However, whether these rights can translate into the expected benefits has received little attention. This paper seeks to help address this knowledge gap by interviewing FNs experts and forestry professionals in BC to understand the long-term goals of FNs in forestry, to strategically evaluate how (and if) opportunities from forestry arise, and to identify institutional factors that influence successful participation in forestry. What we found is that forest tenure can promote economic outcomes, but it often comes at the expense of other intrinsic forest values. We conclude that a rights-based approach alone will not achieve the diverse outcomes related to forestry without effective governance by FNs to evaluate and capitalize on the opportunity in ways that are legitimate to the individual community's values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]