The main priorities for improving the management of Québec’s
public forests
Québec, December 14, 2004
–Today, the Commission for the study of public forest
management in Québec tabled its final report, within
the timeframe and budget allocated by the government.
The mandate of the Commission, chaired by
Guy Coulombe, was to examine the public forest management
system in Québec and propose ways of improving it.
“Our discussions led us to various
findings, some of them disquieting, and this is what prompted
us to propose five major policy changes,” stated Mr.
Coulombe. “These changes go straight to the heart of
Québec’s forest management policy and we invite
the government, forest stakeholders and the general public
to see them as a whole rather than as separate elements.”
The five main priorities recommended by the
Commission for the study of public forest management in Québec
are meant to:
- Move away from management based primarily
on wood production and consider forests as a whole, by focusing
on ecosystem-based management and the completion of the
protected area network.
- Go from volume-based wood allocations
to allocations that take into account tree quality and accessibility
of forest stands in given areas.
- Move from broad-based silviculture where
yields are often uncertain to better planned silvicultural
treatments that would not only make it possible to produce
wood the right way, but also in the right place and at the
right time, in softwood, hardwood and mixed stands.
- Prepare the inevitable consolidation of
the wood processing industry.
- Decentralize forest management in a way
that is transparent and where stakeholders are both informed
and called upon to participate.
In light of its analyses and consultations,
the Commission has come, among other things, to the conclusion
that, globally, Québec’s forests are overharvested.
In hardwood forests, high grading has been practised to remove
the best trees. To date, the move toward selection cutting
has only been partial and the Commission recommends that a
major program be implemented to restore the quality of degraded
hardwood forests.
As for softwood forests,
the Commission found a worrisome decline in wood capital in
the time between the last two forest surveys. This decline
shows that the combined removal of wood – either through
harvesting or losses from natural disturbances or tree mortality
– has exceeded the production capacity of softwood forests.
The Commission also identified serious deficiencies
in the methods currently used to assess the state of forests
and to evaluate the maximum sustainable yield in a particular
area. It has therefore made specific recommendations to take
corrective action that can be integrated into the next management
plans to be produced for each forest management unit across
Québec.
In the meantime, the Commission believes
that caution should be exercised when it comes to the volumes
really available for harvest in public forests, ensuring nevertheless
that Québec wood processing companies, which generate
thousands of jobs and contribute significantly to Québec’s
economy, continue to have access to a stable supply base.
“The changes that we propose are major
and realistic enough,” explained the Commission’s
chair, “for us to recommend that the government postpone
the implementation of the next forest management plans for
a year, in all regions. As a result, these plans would come
into force in 2008, rather than according to the current timetable
of 2007.”
From now until the next management plans
come into effect, i.e. 2008, the Commission recommends that
the maximum sustainable yield for commercial species of the
FSPL group (fir, spruce, jack pine and larch) be reduced by
20% from the sustainable yield presently in effect in each
of the public forest’s territorial units. For these
softwood species, this interim adjustment should result in
an average reduction of roughly 15% in allocations and 10%
in harvest volumes, throughout Québec.
As for species other than those of the FSPL
group, the Commission recommends that from now until the next
plans come into effect in 2008, maximum sustainable yields
remain the same as those currently in force. Considering the
decline for the FSPL group and the impact this may have on
the harvest of hardwoods in mixedwood stands, it will be important
to ensure that authorized harvest volumes for hardwoods do
not exceed the maximum sustainable yield in these stands.
In the area of funding management activities,
the Commission has also made proposals to globally readjust
the budgets currently earmarked for silviculture credits and
programs aimed at protecting and developing forests. The recommendations
therefore aim to provide some financial leeway that will make
it possible to implement programs relating to six main themes
1) acquiring forest-related knowledge, 2) building forest
roads, 3) restoring the quality of hardwood forests, 4) carrying
out intensive silviculture projects, 5) developing inhabited
forest projects and 6) supporting local forest stakeholders.
So these changes can be brought about as
soon as possible, the Commission recommends that the government
promptly set up an implementation committee and appoint a
“Chief Forester.” It also proposes several measures
aimed at increasing the powers of regional decision makers,
especially those of the Conférences régionales
des élus (CRÉs). Furthermore, the Commission
has prepared a timetable outlining the main steps for achieving
the objective, throughout Québec, of having the next
forest management plans launched in 2008 according to the
new management and land use orientations.
The Commission chair stressed that
all actions proposed must not follow a chronological logic,
but rather a concurrent logic. He pointed out that the majority
of the changes looked at by the Commission are interrelated,
therefore making it necessary to rapidly achieve a critical
mass of concrete results.
”We must succeed in constantly aligning
the forest management policy with new knowledge. Progress
in this area must not only be more in tune with the expectations
of the general public and the demands of forest-related economic
activities, but also with the protection of the environment.
If all players rally around this vision for the future, the
near future will, I believe, give rise to a lot of innovation
and pride,” concluded Mr. Coulombe.
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