Learning from the Forest: A Fifty-Year Journey Towards Sustainable Forest Management

Dr. Patrick W. Colgan is the director of Research and Natural Lands at
the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Bott is a Calgary-based writer, Murphy is an emeritus forestry professor
from the University of Alberta, and Udell is manager of forest policy at
Hinton, now owned by Weldwood. Together, they have prepared an
enthusiastic history of adaptive forest management of the Hinton region
adjoining Jasper. The cyclic elements of adaptive management
(assessment, information, planning, implementation) are detailed. The
overall landscape is described, as are the dynamics of the forest and
the role of humans in it. Outlining the policy framework, the first
long-term agreement was concluded in 1951 with similar ones culminating
in the 1988 Hinton Forest Management Agreement.

The forest has numerous other stakeholders, from Natives and hikers to
extractors of non-renewable resources of coal, gas, and oil. To deal
with them, a Forest Resources Advisory Group was established and has
become a key operating element. In terms of habitat preservation, a
Special Places program was implemented. The elements of adaptive
management are individually examined by chapter in terms of the capital
investment and human skills needed, including a pulp mill producing a
number of papers. Particularly interesting is the impact of the
Brundtland Commission and Earth Summit via ISO 14001 requirements for
forestry management. The last two chapters examine growing the new
forest, including silviculture and fire suppression, and more general
issues of sustainability through an approach that stresses biological
integrity.

The text is very upbeat and accompanied by sidebars (which make for
busy reading) and many splendid photographs. A great deal of history
dealing with forestry and attendant society is presented. Learning from
the Forest is a detailed case study of adaptive management and hence of
interest to anyone concerned with forestry.