According to recent research from Simon Fraser University, logging on the Central Coast of British Columbia favored the most valuable parts of the landscape over a 50-year period. Systematically using up very valuable parts of the environment raises questions about the future of the planet and the ability of future generations to use natural resources.
Their research, led by PhD alumnus of SFU Jordan Benner and professor emeritus Ken Lertzman, was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They call this process of “harvesting down the value chain” the movement over time of harvesting operations to forest stands with decreasing productivity and accessibility.
Although the strategy, also referred to as “high grading,” is economically advantageous, according to Benner, “it goes against many ideas about the stewardship ethics that are part of forest management.” But as a result of the cumulative effects of this historical pattern and policy changes that began to be made in the middle of the 1990s, there have been changes in the logging pattern that reflect a more stewardship-oriented approach.
The study focuses on the different economic and stewardship-based approaches to forest management, as well as the effects of policy interventions on management on the landscape and the importance of these interventions for long-term sustainability.
According to Benner, it’s critical to comprehend and take into account the distinctive characteristics of any remaining high-value old growth because these resources represent increasingly rare ecological, economic, and cultural values. Indigenous communities that haven’t always gotten a fair share of the value taken from their lands should be helped and given more power as they try to get fairness and benefits from their landscapes.
Benner and Lertzman’s patterns of forest management are similar to observations of serial depletion in fisheries and other natural resources, where lower-value species replace those of higher value as they are used up.
According to Lertzman, “Humans have significantly changed the world’s natural resources through very specific patterns of consumption: we don’t harvest at random, we tend to take first what is best or most advantageous economically, leaving an ecosystem that is depleted in those components.”
Landscapes and the people who rely on them will suffer long-term effects as a result of this. According to Benner, Indigenous communities are beginning to play a more significant role in forestry and natural resource decision making, which is a long overdue development.
“But the long history of logging down the value chain has, in many areas, reduced options for those choices, for example through the extinction of large cedar trees that are significant to culture. Many of these communities, if given the chance, probably prefer to have the option to decide what to do with the more valuable and varied cultural landscapes that were present in their territories before industrial exploitation.
Lertzman adds that the old growth forest in the valley bottom plays special ecological and cultural roles in the landscape. However, in many places, we lost the majority of this type of forest very early. Our perception of the expected state has changed as a result, and we now tend to normalize this depleted condition, a phenomenon known as the “shifting baseline.” But if we don’t acknowledge the past that brought us to this point, we can’t comprehend the ecological context of our present-day choices.
