December 6 & 7, 2005
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

Workshop Overview
Forestry professionals in British Columbia have a good understanding of what biodiversity means and the concept of managing for biodiversity using coarse and fine filter approaches. The results-based Forest and Range Practices Act allows managers to propose new and innovative approaches to maintaining stand and landscape-level biodiversity, assuming that managers can demonstrate that desired results are being achieved. Certification schemes (such as those proposed by the Canadian Standards Association, Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Forest Stewardship Council) also require that managers demonstrate through monitoring whether management approaches are achieving desired results. This workshop aims to provide managers with the latest scientific information about innovative forest management approaches for maintaining biodiversity, and provide an overview of how to design a monitoring program to evaluate the effectiveness of the management approaches chosen. The relationship between biodiversity and other ecological values (e.g. productivity) will also be discussed.

Management Linkages

The workshop has been structured to link the latest information with current forest management requirements, including:

-          Continual improvement of Sustainable Forest Management or Ecosystem-Based Management plans

-          Meeting Forest and Range Practices Act objectives

-          Development of the monitoring component of forest estate-level management plans

Learning Objectives

-          Participants will have more information about innovative approaches for maintaining structural elements of biodiversity in managed forested landscapes and be better prepared to include biodiversity management in operational forestry.

-          Participants will have more information about how to design a monitoring program to determine the effectiveness of a management approach and how to use information collected to adjust management approaches.

Click here for the Workshop Agenda.

Who Should Attend?

Foresters involved with Sustainable Forest Management planning and planning to achieve results detailed in the Forest and Range Practices Act.

Prerequisite Information

The content presented in this workshop assumes a basic knowledge of biodiversity and the coarse/ fine filter approach for maintaining species richness. Participants should have an understanding of the importance of ecological representation for maintaining biodiversity, and the key components of landscape- and stand-level biodiversity.

As this workshop is the second in a series, we are also assuming a basic level of knowledge about the following relevant concepts:

§       Natural disturbance processes and natural range of variability

§       Ecological succession and ecological rotations

§       Adaptive Management

An overview of biodiversity and forest management in British Columbia, including the concepts mentioned above, may be found at www.forestbiodiversityinbc.ca.

Cost: $200.00

THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL. TO BE NOTIFIED OF FUTURE SESSIONS, PLEASE CONTACT SUSAN LEECH @ 604-822-3668 or susan.leech@forrex.org.

*This workshop is part of FORREX’s Essential Components of Sustainable Forest Management Workshop Series. Two other workshops are planned: one on October 4-5 will focus on Ecosystem Productivity, and one in January will focus on Socio-economic Indicators and Trade-offs. Many of the scientific concepts presented in the ecosystem productivity workshop are also relevant to biodiversity. Individuals interested in attending the biodiversity workshop but needing more information on these basic ecological concepts are encouraged to attend the ecosystem productivity workshop as well. More information on the other workshop modules associated with this series will be posted soon on both of the following websites: http://www.forrex.org or  http://www.selkirk-management.com/events.html