Beyond our Boundaries

The Western Newfoundland Model Forest works with its counterparts across the Canadian Model Forest Network to share research and help ensure sustainable foret management practices are available and iimplemented across the country. Some of the projects we are involved in Beyond our Boundaries are outlined below.

National Carbon Budget Accounting
There is growing recognition of the potential role of forests in helping to mitigate climate change.

Forests are significant reservoirs of carbon, and measures that enhance carbon storage in forests can help to remove carbon from the atmosphere over the short to medium term.

The Canadian Model Forest Network has identified a need for carbon accounting tools at the operational scale as a result of the work carried out on local level indicators. This tool is expected to help forest managers understand and manage the impacts of their actions on carbon stocks and carbon stock changes.

The Canadian Model Forest Network and the Canadian Forest Service’s Carbon Accounting Team (CFS-CAT) are collaborating on a project to develop, test and implement a carbon budget model adapted for use at the operational scale.

The carbon accounting model being developed will be a generic model, intended for widespread use in the forest sector across Canada. It is intended to be operated by the user (forest manager or other user) to explore the impact of various forest management scenarios on carbon stocks, and the model will be made readily and publicly available.

The model will be used for both retrospective accounting and scenario development, and will be consistent with national accounting procedures, integrated across spatial, political and managerial boundaries. It will be designed to be consistent with international accounting rules, and be modified as those rules are clarified. The model will include consideration of all forest carbon stocks that are recognized by the Kyoto Protocol, which includes above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, litter, dead wood and soil organic carbon.

The Western Newfoundland and Lake Abitibi model forests have been selected as pilot sites to participate in the development of the prototype model. The project is expected to be three to five years in duration. Click here for more information on carbon accounting.

Enhancing Aboriginal Involvement
in Sustainable Forest Management
(excerpted from the Canadian Model Forest Web site)
More than 80 percent of Aboriginal communities lie within Canada's productive forest zones and many communities are developing forest-based enterprises such as sawmills, logging companies, eco-tourism activities, and non-timber product ventures. Aboriginal people have also developed a unique knowledge of the forest ecosystem through centuries of intimate contact with the land. With these traditional and contemporary forest experiences, Aboriginals are well-positioned to contribute to today's sustainable forest management practices for the benefit of their communities and all Canadians.

Canada's Model Forest Program offers opportunities for Aboriginal communities to participate in sustainable forest management decision-making. These opportunities are provided through three main mechanisms: the model forest partnership; an Enhanced Aboriginal Involvement Strategic Initiative; and an Aboriginal led model forest.

A model forest is a place where the best sustainable forest management practices are developed and tested on local forest areas then shared across the country. At the heart of each model forest is a group of partners having different perspectives on the social, economic and environmental dynamics within their forest – perspectives that are necessary to make more informed and fair decisions about how to manage the forest.

Ma Maw Wechehetowin (working together, helping each other), the Cree motto of Saskatchewan's Prince Albert Model Forest, is what the partners in every model forest have learned to do.

Model forests strive to establish strong, lasting partnerships with Aboriginal communities by gaining mutual respect and understanding that enables all model forest partners to work together towards sustainable forest management.

The first five years of Canada's Model Forest Program brought many successful collaborations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal partners. The second phase of the Program in 1997 saw the development of several special initiatives to facilitate network advancement in areas such as Aboriginal involvement in sustainable forest management. The Enhanced Aboriginal Involvement Strategic Initiative was designed to enhance First Nation, non-status Indian & Metis communities' participation in the development and accumulation of knowledge and tools associated with sustainable development and the management of forest resources, through model forests and socio-economic partnership initiatives, to meet the needs of present and future generations.

Projects that specifically address the needs of Aboriginal communities include documenting traditional ecological knowledge, launching non-timber forest product ventures, and developing Aboriginal forest management plans. The Western Newfoundlannd Model Forest is currently working with the Innu Nation in Labrador to develop a proposal to help facilitate forest management planning between the Newfoundland Forest Service (NFS) and the Innu Nation in Forest Management District (FMD)19A.

For more information, visit the Canadian Model Forest Network Web site at http://www.modelforest.com/ or click here for information on the District 19 Forest Management Committee.