landscape photo from john prince research forest showing trees in front of a lake

Management Goals & Treatments

RESISTANCE

maintain relatively unchanged conditions over time

Management Goals:

  • Preserve current species richness, but shift towards historic (1940s) species composition and stand structure: reduction of sub-alpine fir and promotion of Douglas-fir, spruce, and deciduous
  • Maintain or improve forest health
  • Maintain or enhance forest structural and age diversity, including larger diameter spruce and Douglas-fir

Strategies & Approaches:

  • Modified/hybrid group selection system
  • Retain ~15 m2/ha basal area, including “veteran trees”
  • Plant locally-sourced Douglas-fir on mesic and drier sites, and hybrid white spruce on wetter sites
  • Leave coarse woody debris, particularly larger diameter pieces
John Prince Research Forest.
John Prince Research Forest. Photo credit: Sue Grainger, John Prince Research Forest

RESILIENCE

allow some change in current conditions, but encourage eventual return to original conditions

JPRF Resilience aerial view
Aerial view of the resulting Resilience treatment stand structure. Photo Provided By: John Prince Research Forest team
Planning schematic of resilience treatment hexagon
Planning schematic of a Resilience treatment hexagon. Photo Provided By: John Prince Research Forest team

Management Goals:

  • Enhance present species diversity by increasing hardwood relative abundance in overstory
  • Reduce fire risk and decrease ladder fuels
  • Increase resilience to pests and pathogens

Strategies & Approaches:

  • Variable matrix of skips and gaps with flexibility to adapt to microsites
  • Variable gap size from 0.1 – 1 ha.
  • Lower residual basal area of 10-15 m2/ha to reduce drought stress
  • Thinning from below for vigor and to remove ladder fuels and light thinning from above of softwoods to shift overstory composition
  • Plant Douglas-fir, hybrid white spruce, and pine from a diversity of future-adapted southern sources
  • Promote natural regeneration of aspen in openings

TRANSITION

John Prince Research Forest dense trees.
Dense forest in John Prince Research area. Photo credit: Sue Grainger, John Prince Research Forest 

actively facilitate change to encourage adaptive responses

Management Goals:

  • Maintain current diversity, while promoting future-adapted species
  • Select and manage current and novel species carefully for present and future pests and pathogens
  • Consideration of long-term carbon storage with increased cedar and hemlock

Strategies & Approaches:

  • Shelterwood system with a lower residual basal area of 5-10 m2/ha.
  • Plant future-adapted species:
    • current: Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, birch, aspen
    • novel: western red cedar, western hemlock, ponderosa pine, western larch
  • Leave hardwoods to shift relative abundance

NO ACTION

allow forests to respond to climate change without direct management intervention

Since climate change impacts all forests globally, we cannot maintain a true “control.” With this in mind, we consider an approach in which forests are allowed to respond to climate change in the absence of direct silvicultural intervention as an appropriate baseline for many questions.