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The enormity of the mountain pine beetle infestation in central British Columbia is resulting in an
accelerated harvest to salvage the dead trees while they maintain
economic value. Agreement holders face the challenge to design and implement the salvage
harvesting to meet requirements including but not limited to; riparian
protection, conservation of water quality and fish habitat, soil
protection and biodiversity. Standard forest planning requirements apply, though salvage cutblocks will
generally be large - to more closely mimic the historic natural
disturbance regime. The legislative requirements under the Forest and Range Practices Act
and Forest Practices Code transition require that harvested
cutblocks larger than the defined maximums must resemble openings caused
by natural disturbance. To resemble natural disturbance, increased stand structure in the form of;
tree retention, understory vegetation and coarse woody debris, is
generally required. Tree retention will therefore be higher than defaults for standard size
cutblocks. The increased retention will serve a variety of functions including but not limited
to:
- increased protection for riparian areas
- maintenance of non-pine species for biodiversity, seed source and future harvest opportunities
- protection of sensitive soils
- increased maintenance of stand structure from either live or dead trees - with intact forest floor
- allowing for cutblock design that more closely mimics natural disturbance.
The guidance documents at this website are provided to help agreement
holders plan and implement salvage harvesting - including road building
and maintenance. The extent of the beetle killed area means harvesting will be done on areas of
changing hydrologic regime with uncertain impacts on many forest
resources. Experience has been gained from harvesting of other large areas of natural disturbance
- this experience has been considered in the documents provided at this
site.
References
General
- Mountain Pine Beetle: Seed Planning
- Planning for forest inventories in beetle-killed stands
- Evaluating
the effects of large-scale salvage logging for mountain pine beetle
on terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates. 2004. Squires, K.A.;
Houde, I.; Bunnell, F.L. (link to NRCAN-PFC bookstore)
- Managing the pattern of forest harvest: lessons from wildfire (pdf, 454 K, posted Dec. 8, 2004)
- Forest Stewardship in the Context of Large Scale Salvage Operations: An Interpretation Paper. Eng, M. 2004, B.C. Min. of For., Res. Br., Victoria B.C., Tech. Rep. 019.
- Estimating Historical Variability of Natural Disturbances in British Columbia
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Annotated
bibliography describing references for fish, wildlife and habitat
stewardship related to managing the effects of the MPB attack.
(pdf,
122 k, posted March 18, 2005)
Hydrology
Design of large cutblocks to resemble natural disturbance
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