Sustainable forest management in the Yukon: A new beginning

Abstract

Forest management in the Yukon has the necessary elements to pursue sustainable development of the Yukon's forest resources. However, the federal government, in cooperation with Yukon and First Nation governments, must ensure the challenges are faced collectively and cooperatively as envisioned under the UFA. Ecosystem-based management presents many challenges. The most important one is to be prepared to allow our individual and collective values and beliefs surrounding forest management to be challenged and perhaps changed. Ecosystem-based management is not one specific goal or program, it is an overall concept that influences the way our forests are managed. The concept may result in some fundamental shifts in traditional beliefs in our systems of governance and resource management. In all cases, resource managers will be expected to report publicly with demonstrable proof that we are managing sustainably.