Abstracts
The Adaptive Capacity of Forest Management to Changing Fire Regimes in the Boreal Forest
Héloïse Le Goff1, Alain Leduc
1Université du Québec à Montréal
le_goff.heloise@courrier.uqam.ca
As climate influences natural processes at multiple spatial and temporal scales, climate change raises many challenges for sustainable forest management. Among them, the integration of forest and fire management is a major issue in boreal forest where fire plays a key-role in the forest dynamics. We propose here an evaluation of the adaptive capacity of forest management concerning changing forest fire regimes under climate change in the boreal forest of Quebec. Adaptation can begin by reinterpreting current practices dealing with climatically driven variability of forest fires. Fire suppression, controlled burns, salvage logging of burnt stands and postfire regeneration enhancement are often presented in the literature as adaptation options to face changing fire regimes under climate change. However, considering the limits associated with these current management practices, there is an increasing need to develop more integrative and spatially-explicit management strategies to decrease the vulnerability of forest management to changing fire risk. Some developing management strategies, such as fuel management or the triad approach (zoning system for conservation, intensive, and extensive forest management), present an interesting potential for integrating the fire risk in forest management plans. While fuel management and fire suppression are indicated for particularly intense fire regimes, forest protection against insect outbreaks and maintaining a shorter disturbance cycle using forest management represent the preferred adaptation options where the fire cycle is lengthening under climate change.
2005-04-05 |
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