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Wood discoloration was investigated in 721 paper birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.) trees from 146 sites across the managed forest of Quebec, Canada. Discoloration was present at breast height in 85% of trees, but its impact was limited in terms of tree basal area and volume, with proportions of 6.4% and 3.6%, respectively. These two measures were strongly correlated. Discoloration changed wood appearance but had no effect on microfibril angle and modulus of elasticity. Discolored wood was nevertheless denser, probably due to the accumulation of colored extractives. Predictive models were also developed and applied to 415 711 paper birch trees from 51 689 inventory plots across the province to study regional variation. Higher proportions of discolored basal area were obtained in the southwestern areas of the province where the climate is warmer and drier. In these areas, paper birch trees are larger and, likely, support bigger branches which can cause larger columns of discoloration when broken. Lower proportions were found in eastern regions where snowfall is more abundant. Smaller, more flexible branches in trees growing in these areas could explain this result. This study confirms the feasibility of large-scale mapping of wood discoloration in standing trees based on forest inventory and climate data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests are the locus of conflict in Canada, where the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples can collide with those of the province (Crown) and the forest industry. Efforts to achieve "forest justice" — or sufficient forest rights to meet the self-governance goals of Indigenous peoples, and in ways that ensure collective resilience — have typically been driven by the principle of reconciliation. In this paper, these "forest justice" efforts were examined through a tripartite justice theory, involving recognition, representation, and redistribution pathways. This paper documents that recognition involves Crown efforts to recognize Indigenous peoples' forest rights, including ownership, and access and use rights; representation includes improved participation in forest governance; and redistribution covers the allocation of timber harvesting rights and forest lands to Indigenous peoples. This study documents that the bulk of "forest justice" activity is focused on the redistribution of timber harvesting licences, the volume of which has doubled over the last two decades. These three paths to justice must all be pursued together to deliver "forest justice", and to move towards "reconciliation in the woods". Recommendations are offered to support forest justice in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, increasing attention has been drawn to improving productivity in logging passages while reducing negative impact on soil and water. The position of landings and extraction routes is crucial in these efforts, as it has a huge impact on efficient and sustainable forwarder passages. In this paper, we propose a two-phase approach to identify the best possible landing locations integrated with log extraction route design. The first phase identifies potential landing zones adjacent to forest roads. It considers practical restrictions such as slopes, stoniness, and closeness to infrastructure. The second phase uses an optimization model to evaluate the potential impact of each zone and aggregate zones, selecting one or two complete landings. This model is a relaxation of a formulation for an extraction route design; it is used to minimize a weighted objective of the total driving distance, avoid steep terrains and impact on soil and water. The proposed approach has been tested on a set of harvest areas in southern Sweden. The results not only show the potential to identify feasible landing zones but also identify a shorter driving distance and hence lower contractual cost with optimized positioning. The possibility to increase efficiency in forest operations by performing scenario analysis and thus forwarding distances with different landing sites is among the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological forestry is based on the idea that forest patterns and processes are more likely to persist if harvest strategies produce stand structures, return intervals, and severities similar to those from natural disturbances. Taylor et al. (2020) reviewed forest natural disturbance regimes in Nova Scotia, Canada, to support implementation of ecological forestry. In this follow-up paper, we (i) review the use of natural disturbance regimes to determine target harvest rotations, age structures, and residual stand structures; and (ii) describe a novel approach for use of natural disturbance regimes in ecological forestry developed for Nova Scotia. Most examples of ecological forestry consider only the local, dominant disturbance agent, such as fire in boreal regions. Our approach included: (i) using current ecological land classification to map potential natural vegetation (PNV) community types; (ii) determining cumulative natural disturbance effects of all major disturbances, in our case fire, hurricanes, windstorm, and insect outbreaks for each PNV; and (iii) using natural disturbance regime parameters to derive guidelines for ecological forestry for each PNV. We analyzed disturbance occurrence and return intervals based on low, moderate, and high severity classes (<30, 30–60, and >60% of biomass of living trees killed, respectively), which were used to determine mean annual disturbance rates by severity class. Return intervals were used to infer target stand age-class distributions for high, moderate, and low severity disturbances for each PNV. The range of variation in rates of high severity disturbances among PNVs was from 0.28%·year–1 in Tolerant Hardwood to 2.1%·year–1 in the Highland Fir PNV, equating to return intervals of 357 years in Tolerant Hardwood to 48 years in Highland Fir PNVs. As an example, this return interval for the Tolerant Hardwood PNV resulted in target rotation lengths of 200 years for 35% of the PNV area, 500 years for 40%, and 1000 years for 25%. The proposed approach of determining natural disturbance regimes for PNV communities and calculating target disturbance rates and corresponding harvest rotation lengths or entry times appears to be a feasible method to guide ecological forestry in any region with a strong ecological land classification system and multiple disturbance agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate-smart forestry (CSF) is considered a promising approach for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, as highlighted in several European policy documents. This paper describes a prospective approach to introducing an incentive-based scheme to facilitate the implementation of CSF through a case study in Iceland. It is argued that the payments for ecosystem services (PES) scheme allows for effective CSF management and long-term sustainability if introduced in compliance with local, cultural, and social values. In a case study of an Icelandic afforestation programme, we conducted an institutional analysis of the PES scheme and assessed its effect on the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services for the long term. We provide preliminary findings on the application of CSF in the 30-year-old Icelandic afforestation programme scheme. The perspectives of forest and policy experts, as well as local farmers participating in the scheme, were crucial for assessing the effectiveness of PES scheme performance in Iceland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the emerging forest bioeconomy as an integrated, multi-product industrial ecosystem, where the traditional pulp mills allocate the use of side streams to independent biochemical companies manufacturing bioproducts in the vicinity of the pulp mills. Topics include the biochemical benefit from the proximity by receiving wood-based side streams at lower costs, and at the same time, and the pulp mills benefit from having a new source of revenue from selling side streams.