British Columbia is committed to sustainable forest management. A key element of that are silviculture practices. Effective silviculture practices help control the establishment, growth, composition, quality and harvest of forest vegetation for various forest resource objectives. These include timber harvesting, wildlife, water, recreation, and aesthetic values, or a combination of these objectives and other forest uses.

• The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is currently developing Integrated Silviculture Strategies which take into account a much broader range of goals for the province’s forests.
• Previous silviculture practices in B.C. tended to focus on the use of incremental silviculture activities (e.g., using fertilization) to speed up tree growth to mitigate mid-term timber supply shortfalls and to help create higher-value wood products. These practices were typically used by tenure holders in individual cut blocks.
• This new approach incorporates “landscape level”, “big picture” plans that could encompass an entire timber supply area or watershed (instead of just individual cut blocks) to manage forest harvesting, reforestation, wildlife habitat and ecosystem needs.
• Another key objective of the process is to improve communications with First Nations and local resource users to foster a common understanding of the values on the land base and how they could change over time in response to different management approaches.
• Within the Integrated Silviculture Strategies program, staff use computer modelling of existing information about multiple forest values (e.g., timber inventories, locations of roads and streams, ungulate winter ranges and other values), and ongoing issues identification, to test different silviculture planning scenarios. The results of these scenarios then generate possible forest management solutions for identified issues.
• Integrated Silviculture Strategies modelling is consistent with the timber supply review process. However, its forward-looking approach considers a wider range of information, such as: forest health management plans, landscape fire management plans, species-at-risk recovery plans, forest, guide outfitter, trapper and range tenure holder rights, climate change factors, and other forest values.
• This structured planning process ensures that these values are fully understood and considered. It also ensures that opportunities to maintain these values over time are in place, while still allowing for a profitable and competitive forest sector.
• Each area where an integrated silviculture strategy is being developed produces a landscape level tactical plan that meets the ministry’s multiple objectives for the forest land base (e.g., timber supply area), while ensuring that resource tenure holders’ rights are met.
• Presently, ministry staff in the Arrowsmith Timber Supply Area, the Mackenzie Timber Supply Area, the Merritt Timber Supply Area and a portion of the Prince George Timber Supply Area are working on Integrated Silviculture Strategies. The goal is to use the knowledge gained in these initial management units to expand the Integrated Silviculture Strategies provincewide.
• Additional goals include reducing wildfire risk for local communities, creating more resilient forests in the face of climate change, and creating a more comprehensive set of landscape reserves, based on a better understanding of the full range of values they provide.
• Integrated Silviculture Strategies will provide strategic guidance to licensees and others who manage the land base (e.g., how to use specific timber harvesting patterns and fire-based stocking standards to minimize fire risk in vulnerable areas).
• Local challenges, such as how to mitigate the current spruce beetle outbreak in the Mackenzie Timber Supply Area, can also be addressed in part by using Integrated Silviculture Strategies (e.g., management options can be generated on sustaining a wide range of forest values while also protecting the mid-term timber supply and maintaining the health of forest ecosystems).
• The ministry’s Integrated Silviculture Strategies are part of the ministry’s commitment to ongoing adaptive management.