Two decades of variable retention in British Columbia: a review of its implementation and effectiveness for biodiversity conservation
department or school: Other UBC
department or school: Non UBC
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: Ecological Processes. 2019 Jul 23;8(1):33
rights copyright: The Author(s).
creator: Beese, William J
creator: Deal, John
creator: Dunsworth, B. G
creator: Mitchell, Stephen J
creator: Philpott, Timothy J
issued: 2019-07-23T16:52:46Z
issued: 2019-07-23
description: Stand-level retention is an important component of sustainable forest management which aims to balance ecological, social and economic objectives. Long-term retention of mature forest structures at the time of harvesting (variable retention) is intended to produce future forest stands that more closely resemble conditions that develop after natural disturbances, thereby maintaining greater diversity of habitats for a variety of organisms. Structure includes features such as live and dead trees representing multiple canopy layers, undisturbed understory vegetation and coarse woody debris. Over the past two decades, variable retention has become common on forest lands in the temperate rainforests of coastal British Columbia (BC) and has been applied to a lesser extent in inland forest types. Our review of studies in BC and in similar forest types in our region indicates that both aggregated and dispersed retention can contribute to biodiversity conservation by providing short-term ‘life-boating’ habitat for some species and by enhancing the structural characteristics of future stands. For example, greater abundance of species present in the pre-harvest forest have been documented for vegetation, birds, carabid beetles, gastropods, ectomycorrhizal fungi and soil fauna in retention cutblocks compared to clearcuts. There are, however, some negative consequences for timber production such as wind damage to retained trees and reduced growth rates of tree regeneration compared to clearcuts. The authors suggest an adaptive management approach for balancing competing objectives when faced with uncertainty. This includes monitoring the implementation and effectiveness of various strategies for achieving goals. Over two decades of experience applying variable retention harvesting to industrial-scale management of forest lands in BC suggests that it is possible to balance production of wood with biodiversity conservation.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/71085
note: REVIEWriciretention, British Columbiarest manage-017) but thised in a com-8). Palik andnderstandingBeese et al. Ecological Processes (2019) 8:33 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13717-019-0181-9various approaches to ecologically based forestry have1Vancouver Island University, 900 Fifth Street, Nanaimo, BC V9R 5S5, CanadaFull list of author information is available at the end of the articletivity, in part, by using natural disturbance patterns andprocesses to guide stand- and forest-level interventionsand resulting vegetation structures (e.g. Hunter 1990).the distinction among terms for these approaches thatforesters may use carelessly. As a hierarchy, ecologicalforestry is a framework of ecological principles andgoals, natural disturbance emulation is a strategy andretention harvesting is a practice. In the past 30 years,* Correspondence: bill.beese@viu.caForest ecosystems and associated species have evolved inresponse to climate, other biophysical attributes and arange of natural disturbances at various temporal andspatial scales. Ecologically based forest managementaims to conserve biological diversity and forest produc-system based, ecologically based, etc.) foment have several origins (D’Amato et al. 2approach has been most recently articulatprehensive manner by Franklin et al. (201D’Amato (2017) discuss the importance of uBackground The foundations and principles of ecological (i.e. eco-AbstractStand-level retention is an important component of sustainable forest management which aims to balanceecological, social and economic objectives. Long-term retention of mature forest structures at the time ofharvesting (variable retention) is intended to produce future forest stands that more closely resemble conditionsthat develop after natural disturbances, thereby maintaining greater diversity of habitats for a variety of organisms.Structure includes features such as live and dead trees representing multiple canopy layers, undisturbed understoryvegetation and coarse woody de…
has type: Article
spatial: British Columbia
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0380053
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
publisher DOI: 10.1186/s13717-019-0181-9
rights: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
subject: Alternative silvicultural systems
subject: Clearcutting
subject: Biological legacies
subject: Forest biodiversity
subject: Old-growth
subject: Variable retention
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/71085