Tours

Introduction

The best way to learn about forests and forestry is to actually get out in the bush and explore! To go on a tour with an expert like a forester is great because you can see, smell and touch the soil and plants ... and you can ask questions. Lots of questions!

Here, on the internet the best we can do, is to show you pictures of a real forest and give you some information about that forest and the way it is being managed. You can always e-mail us questions. One of the good things about an internet forest tour is you never get wet or cold and there are no mosquitoes!

Our forest tour is of Canadian Forest Products Ltd. (Canfor) former Managed Forest 10. This forest is on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia near Gibsons (which is just northwest of Vancouver). These forests are complex ecosystems with many different values and uses including fish and wildlife habitat, hiking and camping. When the company managed the area Canfor had to plan for all these values and still produce much needed wood products.

Managed Forest 10 is in the "Coastal Western Hemlock Zone." This means it is part of the forest ecosystem found along the coast of B.C., at lower elevations, where the temperatures are mild and the rainfall is high. These conditions come with their own special management challenges. Different ecosystems respond differently to various forestry activities. Due to this fact, everything we did in this forest had to be based on a sound knowledge of the particular ecosystem.

Site Preparation

Did you know that forest management is a lot like farming? Just like a farmer, the forester must create good growing conditions for seedlings. Where needed, we sometimes do formal site preparation to help give the new forest a good start.

By law (Forest Practices Code (FPC)), companies must have a minimum number of seedlings growing in an area after logging. In order to meet these planting requirements, some form of site preparation may be necessary. Site preparation on the coast has changed over the years since this block was treated, as forestry is evolving to meet public concerns.

The area in the foreground was logged in 1984. Back then, it was pretty messy after logging, there were probably lots of branches and bark on the ground - we call this logging slash. The theory was that this wood will slowly rot, releasing nutrients that are important for the soil. However, if the slash is too thick it is very hard for new seedlings to grow and it can also be impossible for tree planters to get through the slash to the soil to plant their trees. In these cases we used to use machines and fire to prepare the site for planting.

Back in 1984, Canfor needed to create good conditions for reforestation on this block. In this case we did a slash burn and planted the following spring. In 1987 a regeneration survey showed the site had lots of fir, cedar, hemlock, willow and alder: 900 planted trees per hectare and 500 natural trees per hectare. The burn was a key part of this reforestation success!

Concerns about smoke pollution and wasted wood have shifted how companies handle site preparation on the coast. Today we do much less slash burning and site prep in general. There is a more concerted effort to log more cleanly, piling brush on the roadside as small piles for burning or to leave as habitat for small mammals. It is interesting to note that the pendulum that swung away from burning is starting to come back as ecologists now consider fire as an important tool to support the fire-dependent species that may be lost without the natural or managed fire cycle.

Reforestation

Did you know that in BC all areas harvested must be reforested? It's the law!

Reforestation can occur in three ways: natural regeneration, planting seedlings or by spreading seed. At Canfor, as with most forestry companies, planting seedlings is the main method of reforestation.

Twenty years ago this area was planted with only Douglas-fir seedlings - today this site would be planted with a mixture of species to diversify the site. In spite of planting only one kind of tree back then, the stand now has an assortment of coniferous and deciduous trees including: western red cedar, western hemlock, Douglas-fir, alder, willow, and cherry. There are also a large variety of shrubs, brush, ferns and mosses. So, where did all the other species of trees come from?

These trees came from seeds left behind in the soil before and during logging. Other seeds were blown in by the wind or dropped by animals or birds. This has led to the species diversity you see here.

Years ago many sites in B.C. were replanted with one species. However, due to nature's amazing ability to grow, most of these stands eventually developed into mixed species sites like this one. Today we would plant several species - not just one.

Planting is not the end of the reforestation story. Brushing, the removal of weeds, can be an important next step. On rich sites that promote lots of plant growth, the slower growing evergreen seedlings can be overwhelmed by the faster growing brush species. Forest workers go in and mechanically, or more rarely chemically, remove the competing brush. The remaining seedlings now have more space, sun and water, which can speed up their growth.

New plantations are constantly checked to make sure they meet government regulations. The survival and health of the seedlings are monitored and if problems occur, replanting or an appropriate action is taken.

Spacing

Growing the forest back after logging is an important part of forest management, but did you know sometimes we can have too many trees growing back?

This stand was clearcut over thirty years ago and then planted with Douglas-fir. It grew back well -- too well in fact! There were so many trees that they were competing with each other for light and space. Competition can make trees grow slowly or die and increase forest health problems.

Foresters can use farming or gardening methods like weeding, spacing, thinning and fertilizing to control competition and therefore help the forest to grow back quickly. Foresters call these: "stand tending" methods.

The new forest established here was thick and the trees were growing very slowly. When the trees were about 15 year old, the forest was spaced. Spacing is when a number of the trees are selectively cut down to decrease competition and allow the remaining standing trees more room to grow.

The spacing done here gave the trees more sunlight, water and nutrients, as well as more space. The aim is to help the trees to grow the best they can on this site. The trees here responded with a significant increase in growth.

Pruning

Did you know forests can sometimes prune themselves?

In open, light filled stands the trees will have live branches right down to the base of the tree, just like a Christmas tree. However in a dense young natural forest not much light gets through to the forest floor or to the lower branches. The trees respond by putting all their efforts into growing up towards the sun. The results are that the lower branches die from lack of light. This is natural pruning

Another form of natural pruning can occur as the shade tolerant species such as cedar and hemlock grow up through the understory. These smaller trees bend and sway with the wind, and may knock off the lower branches of the older trees.

In a managed forest we want to encourage our trees to put their efforts into growing fatter not taller. We do this by reducing competition through spacing. However, we don't want the trees to have all those lower branches due to the increased light. Why? Because those branches cause knots, and knots reduce the value of that wood. So what do we do?

In forests where natural pruning does not occur people can go in and do the job. We can prune off the lower branches. Pruning branches can increase the value of the wood being grown. Once the branch is removed, all the new layers of wood grown by the tree will not have knots. This makes the wood more valuable and increases the range of products it can be used for. Pruning is also used to increase the resistance to disease (some diseases spread through the lower branches) and to enhance wildlife habitat.

There is a question about the investment value of pruning. Pruning is very labour intensive and therefore expensive. Will there be a return on this investment in 50 years when the wood is harvested? It is hard to guess what the wood market will be like. So there is much discussion about when to prune and whether the high short-term cost of the pruning is worth the potential future benefit. The form of land tenure plays a role here. On crown land, will the company that does the pruning be the one to see the future benefit? Nowadays, instead, some companies try to use spacing in a careful way – opening the stand enough to get the increase in growth from decreased competition, but not too much to encourage lower limb growth

This particular area was pruned and thinned by Canfor in 1953. It was the first intensive silviculture project involving commercial thinning and pruning in B.C.! "Basic silviculture" are the things we do to regrow the forest, i.e. site preparation, planting. "Intensive silviculture" are the things we do to increase the amount of wood or value in forest stands, i.e. spacing, pruning etc.

Intensive silviculture was a rare thing back in 1953, but today intensive silviculture is more common.

More than 360 Douglas-fir were pruned to a height of 15 meters. In those days the forest workers used belts to hold them to the tree, and put spurs on their boots so they could climb up the tree and knock off the branches with saws and clubs. Today we don't climb the trees - we use saws with long extendible handles and ladders where necessary.

The average diameter of the trees were 46 centimeters in 1953. This has since increased to 64 centimeters, resulting in 18 centimeters of clear, knot-free wood. Both natural and commercial pruning can play a role in growing quality, high value wood. The question that remains unanswered is whether today’s investment in pruning will result in a payback in the future.

Thinning

Sometimes middle aged forests start to get too crowded and the trees grow slowly - any guesses what we can do to improve growth? Yes, reduce competition by removing some of the trees

If the trees are young we call this "spacing" - and we would leave the cut trees on the ground to decompose and enrich the soil. When they are older we call it "thinning" and if they are large enough, we pull the logs out and take them to the mill. We leave the branches and needles behind for compost.

One half of the trees were taken out of this stand. Commercial thinning involves removing small, poorer quality trees and usually occurs when the trees are between 40 and 60 years. These trees would probably not have survived as they were overwhelmed by bigger trees.

Canfor must take care to ensure that damage does not occur to the remaining standing trees during falling and yarding of these smaller trees. If the bark or roots are scuffed or broken, disease or insects may enter the wound and reduce the value of the damaged tree or cause the tree to die before it reaches harvest age. A successful thinning program will allow the remaining trees to grow bigger at a faster rate.

Harvest: Selection

Can you ever mix different forest harvesting practices together?

Yes, this is part of Canfor's efforts to diversify its forest practices. We were experimenting with different forest management techniques and trying to mix some techniques together. In this block we have a clearcut, a shelterwood cut, a retention patch and reserved wildlife trees.

The area circled in the photo exemplifies a form of selection harvest. This is a type of logging where some trees are logged while others are left standing. In this case the practice is called shelterwood harvest, where the stand is opened by removing smaller trees and allowing the dominant trees to keep growing. About 50 trees per hectare were left on the site. These trees included a mix of Douglas-fir, western white pine trees and some western red cedar. These trees were left to act as shelter for the newly planted seedlings. The larger trees provide shade and also limit brush growth, which would compete with the new trees. These overstory trees will be removed in ten or fifteen years after the new trees have been established

All of the western hemlock trees were removed to guard against mistletoe infestation. Mistletoe is a parasitic plant common in hemlock. It weakens and deforms the trees and can ultimately kill them. Leaving any infected trees would lead to this parasite spreading to the newly established trees.

The trees left standing after the shelterwood harvest are now more exposed to the wind. One of the concerns with choosing any type of selection harvest is the potential for blowdown. Foresters must take this into consideration when choosing the harvest method. As this is a dry site and is fairly sheltered from the wind no blowdown is anticipated.

The site has been reforested and will be monitored for productivity, growth, general forest health and animal use.

Harvest: Clearcut

Clearcuts are ugly so why do we have them at all?

Clearcutting is just one of many forest management tools. Canfor chose to clearcut the top of this block because this part of the hillside would have been susceptible to blowdown if a selection harvest was used. There are many sizes of clearcut ranging from a small clump of trees to a large area of 40 hectares. This 5.8 hectare area has been reforested and will be monitored for productivity, growth, general forest health and wildlife use.

When would we use clearcut harvest?

• To produce a block that has high light levels for growing back sun-loving species like Douglas-fir.
• In insect or disease infested areas where we want to remove all the standing trees and start a new healthy forest.
• In areas where wind will restrict the use of selection harvest. Explain why this is different then next point
• In areas where the trees are shallow rooted and likely to blow down.
• In hazardous forests where high levels of rot (makes the falling of trees unpredictable) or steep terrain make selection logging very dangerous for forest workers.
• Where sensitive soils can't take the repeated entry of a selection harvest.
• Cost factors - clear cutting is usually less expensive.
• In areas where grazing is important for wildlife species. Clearcut opens up block with blocks filling in with herbs and plants...

A forester has to look closely at the ecology, soil, slope and many other factors when determining the best harvest method for each area.

Wildlife Habitat

Why did Canfor leave a patch of trees inside this logging block?

We wanted to provide a mixture of wildlife habitats across the landscape. A mixture of habitats will provide a diversity of wildlife species. Some species prefer open areas while others need forest characteristics. To get this mixture of habitats we combine:

• Logged openings
• Retained patches of forest within logged blocks
• Areas of mature forest between blocks
• Stream (Riparian) Management zones
• Wildlife trees in and around logged blocks

In this part of the logging block, trees were left standing to provide wildlife shelter. Many of the western hemlock trees were infested with dwarf mistletoe, a parasitic plant that deforms trees and hinders growth. Infected trees on this site were killed to stop parasite from spreading to the new forest, but the dead trees were left standing to create wildlife trees for cavity-nesting animals. (Animals that live in holes in dead trees) The windfirm and disease-free trees were left to grow.

These patches are important for animals and birds that like to feed in the larger openings, but also need a forest close by for shelter. Other kinds of wildlife habitat areas, management zones and reserves are found throughout the managed forest.

Snags

Why are dead trees (called snags or wildlife trees) so important?

Wildlife trees are damaged or dead trees that are great places for finding bugs to eat or soft wood to drill a nesting hole. These snags are an important part of a healthy ecosystem. They serve as nesting sites and habitat for burrowing birds, mammals and insects. Many key species such as the bald eagle use snags as nesting and perching sites. When snags eventually fall to earth and begin to decay, the rotting wood produces habitat for an entirely different set of species such as salamanders and insects.

Snags are a natural process within mature forests. Because most forests grow vigorously in their early years, snags are not produced on sites such as this until the site is 100 years or older. Because of this foresters may acutally create snags for new forests by:

• planting logs (after logging - a machine will dig holes and erect old logs)
• cutting the tops off some of the trees,
• girdling good sized trees (cutting the bark to kill the tree so it will rot and have lots of bugs for birds)
• keeping patches of natural snags in and around the logged area.

Although snags maybe very valuable for wildlife, they are also very dangerous for forest workers. They can fall without warning. Workers have to very careful when working near these "danger trees"! There is a special course called "Wildlife Danger Trees", that teaches workers how to identify trees/snags that are too dangerous to workers to leave standing verses wildlife trees that are safe to leave for workers and animals!

Unmanaged Forest

Why is this unmanaged forest so crowded?

The forests of the Sunshine Coast, like most forests in the province, have a long history of fire. Fire is a natural occurrence that results in clearing large tracts of land and preparing the site for regeneration (growing back). The last major fire occurred in the region more than 100 years ago.

The forest that grew back after the fire was very thick and crowded. Nature grew about 5000 trees per hectare. To give some perspective on how thick this is - Canfor would usually only plant up to 1200 trees per hectare in this kind of site expecting that with natural mortality there would only be about 500 trees /ha at harvest.

Trees on this site grow slowly and are thin and frail due to high competition with other trees for space, nutrients and light. Note that there are no plants growing under these trees (undergrowth or understory) because the dense forest allows very little light to reach the ground. This means no "groceries" for wildlife making this site unsuitable for most wildlife habitat.

Eventually over a long period of time, some trees will win the competition race and natural thinning will occur. Forest management can speed up the stages of forest regrowth (called succession) by reducing competition with stand tending techniques and by planting seedlings to get the trees established quickly.

Roads

Have you heard of "unbuilding" logging roads? We now take away the old roads and return the land to growing trees!

In order to get people and machines into the working forest, many roads are built. In the past, these roads have been left after the logging is completed. As the years pass, some of these old roads and trails may develop serious erosion problems - sometimes resulting in landslides. In fact most slide and erosion problems are not associated with harvesting, but with improperly built roads or old roads left after harvesting and not maintained or deactiviated. Erosion not only wastes valuable soil for growing trees, it can cause habitat damage to fish streams.

In recent years, Canfor has made increasing efforts to convert unused roads back into productive forest land to remove the threat of erosion and landslides. The process may include the following actions:

• Culverts and bridges are removed.
• The road bed is softened (to allow roots to penetrate).
• The original slope is recontoured to return the sidehill to its original shape.
• Topsoil, which had been removed to build the road, is replaced.
• Organic debris (wood, leaves..) from logging is spread on top to provide nutrients.
• Logs and other debris can be repositioned to create new habitat for birds and animals.
• Road building practices now include planning for this eventual "unbuilding".

Private Land

Who owns Managed Forest 10? Most of the working forest in B.C. is owned by the government and forest companies "lease" the right to manage these forests. Managed Forest 10 is an exception in it is made up of private land owned Canfor.

Having private land allows us the flexibility to experiment and the security to invest in intensive silviculture. Remember stops #3, 4 and 5? We were doing intensive silviculture (pruning and thinning) way back in the 1950's!

The cost of research trials and intensive silviculture is high and the benefit (higher value wood and shorter regrowth) is often 40-80 years away. If you own the forest, or have a long term agreement with the government, you will see the return on your investment in the future. However, in most areas in B.C. forest companies have no future rights to the area they are working in, therefore they will not receive any future benefits to cover this cost. In this case there is no incentive for companies to research or employ intensive silviculture.