An ecological rationale for sustainable forest management concepts at Riverside Forest Products, southcentral British Columbia

Abstract

Riverside Forest Products (Kelowna, British Columbia) has embraced a sustainable forest management approach for the management of one its forest tenures - Tree Farm License 49. This document discusses the rationale behind many of the concepts within this approach in the context of current ecological theory. We focus specifically on the following concepts: (1) forest retention, (2) ecosystem representation, (3) ecological contributions from unharvested forests, (4) zoning and the TRIAD approach, (5) stand-level habitat elements and landscape-level features, and (6) ecological indicators. This document provides an example of the application of current ecological theory within a commercial forestry operation in Canada and is thus broadly applicable to foresters, forest managers, and researchers in most jurisdictions.