CORNER BROOK - New tools are being developed to help forest managers predict the future look of Newfoundland and Labrador’s forests.

The Biodiversity Assessment Project (BAP) is based on a simple premise to meet a basic need in forest and ecosystem management, according to Tim Moulton, chair of the province’s BAP Working Group.

Tim Moulton, chair of the Biodiversity Assessment Project Working Group, and Dr. Yves Jardon of the Institut Québécois d'Aménagement de la Forêt Feuillue (IQAFF) in the field. WNMF Photo.

“Biodiversity is a term describing the biological diversity of all living things, taking into account intrinsic ecological, economic, social and cultural values,” says Moulton. “Preserving biodiversity helps ensure the sustainability of ecosystems, and BAP is Newfoundland and Labrador’s response to this very important issue.”

That response comes in the form of a suite of strategic planning tools developed to assess the impact of various forest management scenarios on biodiversity.

“For example, we may find that a particular forest management strategy adversely affects the amount of habitat available to a certain wildlife species in the future,” says Moulton. “However, we may also find that with a small adjustment to that strategy now, the negative effects can be reduced or eliminated.”

Dr. Yves Jardon and Dr. Frederik Doyon, both of the Institut Québécois d'Aménagement de la Forêt Feuillue (IQAFF), look over a map with BAP Working Group chair Tim Moulton. WNMF Photo.

The BAP Working Group consists of individuals representing Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Ltd.; Abitibi Consolidated Company of Canada; Wildlife Division of the Department of Environment and Conservation; Department of Natural Resources; Gros Morne National Park; and the Western Newfoundland Model Forest Partnership. The BAP project is currently in its fourth year, and Forest Management District 15 is being used as the pilot project study area.

Two components

There are two components to BAP. Coarse filter examines ecosystem diversity and landscape structure indices, and fine filter focuses on species-specific Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs).

“BAP is being developed to satisfy the need of forest planners to assess biodiversity during the development of a forest management plan,” says Moulton. “It will also be instrumental for CSA (Canadian Standards Association) forest certification (for pulp and paper companies), for strategic planning, and to help protect a wide variety of forest values for present and future generations.”

BAP includes three models.

1) BAP model analysis – A biodiversity-friendly assessment of projected forest management scenarios. The BAP Working Group developed three distinct forest management scenarios, and projected these scenarios 210 years into the future, creating distinctly different forest landscapes. The BAP model will run on each scenario and the results will be evaluated. Based on the results, researchers will choose a scenario or develop a new one that may better represent future forest management activities.

2) Species specific habitat suitability analysis – utilizing several species-specific HSMs. Three species-specific models have been created to date, including a pine marten model adapted from an earlier vector model developed by Joe Brazil, Kathy Knox, Brian Hearn and Jason Pond; a new woodland caribou model, and a boreal owl model, modified from previous work conducted through the WNMF partnership.

3) LANDIS model analysis – LANDIS is a computer model that simulates natural disturbances on the landscape. This model is being adapted to western Newfoundland by using historical hemlock looper and spruce budworm outbreak information, as well as ongoing stand structure and dynamics analysis from 1934 and 1968 black and white aerial photography. The outputs of this model will be used as a control to compare to BAP forest management scenario outputs.

The result of this work will be a window into the future of forest management in Newfoundland and Labrador, says Moulton.

“Our responsibility as forest managers is to attempt to continuously improve our understanding of our natural resources to so we can responsibly plan, operate, and monitor them,” says Moulton. “We must take steps to adapt by incorporating new knowledge, and we must accelerate learning by designing management activities as experiments. Computer modelling has a distinct advantage in evaluating new forest management activities because such experiments are far less costly if they are done virtually through the use of computer modeling.”

Future plans for BAP are to develop at least four additional wildlife HSMs to add to the BAP model using local data. Also, the BAP model will be developed to run on other eco-regions so it can be used throughout the province and applied to specific situations, such as fire-dominated ecosystems in central Newfoundland.

The BAP Working Group is directing and coordinating the transfer of BAP tools developed by Millar-Western Forest Products in Alberta to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Much of the research and programming work is being done in cooperation with Dr. Frederik Doyon, RPF, and Dr. Yves Jardon, both of the Institut Québécois d'Aménagement de la Forêt Feuillue (IQAFF), and Arnold Rudy of KBM Forestry Consultants Inc.

Linda Skinner, WNMF,
and Tim Moulton, BAPWG chair
Forest Watch article, Winter 2003

Dr. Frederik Doyon's presentations to the Western Newfoundland Model Forest's November, 2003 Biodiversity Assessment Project workshop are available here in PDF format.

1. BAP Overview
2. BAP Work
3. Habitat Supply Models

Biodiversity Assessment Project (BAP)

The partnership of the Western Newfoundland Model Forest has evolved in its approach to modeling since the beginning of Phase One in 1992. Our partners have made tremendous progress in understanding of the way in which forests grow, the relationships that specific species of wildlife have with these sensitive habitats, and the empirical assumptions that modeling tools make while generating scenarios.

In an attempt to take varying wood supply projections based on specific management scenarios and assess their impact on biodiversity, the WNMF partnership has been venturing down a new road in modeling for the past four years. This work is known as the Biodiversity Assessment Project (BAP).

A suite of tools

Through previous work completed under the sponsorship of Millar Western Forest Products Ltd. of Whitecourt, Alberta, P. Duinker, F. Doyon, R. Morash, L. Van Damme, H.L. MacLeod, and A. Rudy developed a suite of tools to assess the biodiversity implications of alternative forest-management strategies in terms of landscape patterns, ecosystem diversity and wildlife habitat supplies. The WNMF BAP Working Group (BAPWG), consisting of the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited, Inland Fish and Wildlife Division, Newfoundland Forest Service, Gros Morne National Park, and Abitibi Consolidated are in the process of transferring the appropriate models to the Newfoundland ecological situation and will be testing them on forest projections for District 15.

The major research group leading the development of these tools is the Institut Québécois d'Aménagement de la Forêt Feuillue (IQAFF).

As of 1999, the BAPWG and IQAFF have been working on the development and testing of four forest management scenarios with three species specific Habitat Suitability Models (marten, woodland caribou, and boreal owl). Starting November 17 in Corner Brook, the BAPWG has organized an open, one day Workshop on the components of its program and will be conducting a training workshop for modelers and planning analysts on running BAP models. The group will also run the BAP indicators, analyse BAP outputs, interpret the results, and give recommendations for further improvements to the BAPWG.

Since the BAP is strongly reliant on using a natural disturbance regime simulator to evaluate its scenario projections, IQAFF is developing a natural disturbance based landscape simulator (LANDIS) to use as a control for future forest projections. Presently, IQAFF is re-interpreted and evaluated aerial photos of District 15 dating back to 1934 and 1968. This evaluation will enable IQAFF to determine patterns of insect disturbance and build the necessary elements to project natural disturbance patterns of future forests.

For more information on BAP, contact wnmf@wnmf.com.