In recent years, forestry in BC has been facing severe challenges, including the mountain pine beetle epidemic (MPB), which had a major impact on timber supply. Although salvaging MPB blocks did induce a short-term uplift in AAC, for 2025-2070 timber supply in the region will be reduced by 20% compared to pre-MPB levels.
Partial cutting approaches represent a promising opportunity for mitigating mid-term timber supply shortage, specifically commercial thinning (CT). When applying CT treatments, a proportion of timber in a stand is harvested several years before a final cut is carried out. In doing so it is possible to advance the timing of harvested volume, thereby inducing an allowable cut effect (ACE).
However, there are a number of
- A first challenge lies in the wide variation of resulting ACE over a larger land base and accordingly, a wide variation in related economics. The reason for this high variability in ACE is linked to the high variation of characteristics of a forested area. For example, CT operations compared to clearcuts, yield different products (e.g. different timber diameters), a lower overall volume, while being related with comparably high costs (e.g. requires investing in different machinery and silviculture, costs for infrastructure, such as road building, etc.).
- A second challenge lies in the current tenure system in BC, which do not always guarantee license holders to benefit from their silvicultural investments in a direct manner (volume based licenses dominate over area based licenses).
- A third challenge lies in the long term management planning, as the multiple sources of uncertainty associated with climate change and changing disturbances dynamics render the decision making process difficult, especially when aiming at identifying economically optimal forest management strategies.
This situation has led to a very cautious attitude among industry decision makers when it comes to the use of CT.
This project aims to enhance the quality and timing of information available to industry decision makers, with the overall goal to support the acceptance and uptake of CT operations by the forest industry. This website serves as a front-end for dissemination of project outcomes, in particular regarding the gathering of information on the consequences of partial cuts in BC and comparable geographies.
This research is supported by
The Forest Innovation Program of the Canadian Wood Fibre Center
Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service
