The Mission
Rehabilitate degraded forest ecosystems on a landscape scale so that they become sufficiently resilient, complex, and diverse to survive and prosper.
Why do forests need help?
Over a century of aggressive logging practices, fire suppression, and myriad additional human disturbances to natural rhythms, have resulted in a drastic loss of ecological functionality within BC’s forests.
Just like us, forests used and abused in their youth struggle to recover without help, even if removed from harm’s way. The dense monoculture lumber plantations (“tree farms”) we have become accustomed to seeing as forests are as far from natural, healthy forests as are canola cash crops from native grasslands.
Degraded ecosystems pose a risk to human society, as the fires, floods, and droughts of recent years show. But they pose an even greater risk to a tenuous natural balance growing more precarious by the day.
Our future as a civilization, and the future of our forests, can only be secured by restoring the developmental trajectories of our industrialized forests into more natural ones. Healthy forests are highly fire-resilient, store large volumes of water, sequester carbon for posterity, build soils, and provide habitat and forage to countless organisms from bacteria to apex predators.
The “tree farms” we have surrounded ourselves by simply don’t have what it takes to survive the harsh realities of our times.
Integrative Forest Rehabilitation: A Holistic Restoration Regime
Sometimes, even Nature needs a hand.
Our rehabilitation model weaves uniquely tailored methodologies developed by us, and time tested, thoroughly researched methodologies together. Inspired by regenerative agriculture and decades of scientific research into old-growth ecology, the Integrative Forest Rehabilitation approach is based on an understanding that nature holds the key to heal itself, and to sustain us—as it has from time immemorial.
Before
After
The temperate old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest are famous worldwide for their profound biological abundance. They are highly complex in structure, highly diverse in composition, and perform a wide range of crucial ecological functions unique to them alone.
These factors, when combined, result in incredibly resilient forests that can withstand strong climatic, environmental, and biological pressures with relative ease. As such pressures mount higher and higher upon our industrialized and homogenized forests with each passing year up, they can only survive if the essential characteristics of healthy natural forests are restored in them.
We could never hope to “make” an old growth forest—it is the culmination of an infinitely complex, millennia long process. But we can lay the foundation and point it in the right direction, just as we do with our children. In the end, what is most crucial is that we give space for nature to express itself.
The Rehabilitation Process
There are few things more complex and fraught than changing living ecosystems. To change industrialized forests for the better means to liberate (or decolonize) them so that they may embark on a healing journey toward what they were always meant to be. However, there are countless examples of human hubris and blindness, even when treatments are applied with the best intentions in mind. Therefore it is crucial that prior to any intervention, a deep and profound understanding of forest ecology and successional dynamics be paired with rigorous research and an exhaustive, individually crafted treatment design phase.
Forest Health Assessment:
Remote Sensed Modeling: The first step of the assessment precedes the physical visit for a field survey. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) modelling and other GIS tools are used to preliminarily assess the the structure, light distribution, and composition of the forest. See photo #1.
Field Surveys: A wide suite of surveying and data collection methodologies are utilized, yielding an abundance of data including a BEC (Bio-Geo-Climatic) classification, basic silvic parameters, canopy and ground coverage statistics, as well as an interactive map of salient biodiversity features. Right: photos taken from the centroid of a random sample health assessment plot; left: ground and canopy occupancy statistics collected.
Forest Diagnosis: Data from the modeling and field surveys is synthesized into a forest diagnosis that is used to determine what developmental trajectory it is most likely to follow, and to design a uniquely tailored rehabilitation protocol, if deemed appropriate and necessary.
1) LiDAR modelling
Prior to the field survey, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) modelling is used to preliminarily assess the the structure, light distribution, and composition of the forest.
2) Field Surveys
A wide suite of surveying and data collection methodologies are utilized, yielding an abundance of data including a BEC (Bio-Geo-Climatic) classification, basic silvic parameters, canopy and ground coverage statistics, as well as an interactive map of salient biodiversity features.
3) Forest diagnosis
Data from modelling and field surveys is synthesized into a forest diagnosis that is used to determine what developmental trajectory it is most likely to follow, and to design a uniquely tailored rehabilitation protocol, if necessary.
2. Designing a Rehabilitation Prescription:
The data collected during the survey is translated into a uniquely tailored rehabilitation protocol per each individual stand. Whereabouts of salient biodiversity features, stem density and distribution, hydrological influences, biological stressors, and factors that impact fire behavior are among the most important parameters that influence the prescription design. Every prescription consists of three distinct sub-prescriptions: thinning, carbon retention, and biodiversity enhancement.
1) Thinning Prescription
An ecologically informed variable-density thinning design is laid out to emphasize and drastically increase the inherent variability of the stand. A complex mosaic of dense, open, and intermediate stand conditions is laid out to replicate natural stands. The largest gaps are situated where the biodiversity potential is highest.
2) Carbon Retention Plan
A carbon sequestration plan is made to optimize the fuel-management, habitat creation, and soil regeneration efforts for the individual stand. A wide suite of novel regenerative agriculture inspired methodologies are used to augment and accelerate the decomposition process of retained wood.
3) Biodiversity Enhancement Program
A biodiversity enhancement program is developed to restore the most essential missing links, from an ecological function perspective, in the stand’s biodiversity chain.
3. Implementation:
Ecological Thinning
The stands are thinned using a variable-density thinning protocol, which, being polarly opposite to commercial thinning, maximizes heterogeneity and complexity in the forest. A combination of falling, making of instant snags via cambium girdling, and a novel methodology we named the Time-Release Girdle, together with native thinning agents such as the Orange honeysuckle, increase the effective duration of the canopy opening effect by up to 300% compared to other models.
Carbon Retention
Being a no-external-input approach where everything is from the forest and for the forest, all of the thinned material is retained in the stand. A combination of novel methodologies such as the Assembled Nurse Log and the Mycelial Graft, augment and accelerate the decomposition process and maximize moisture retention (and thus fire resilience) via effective and time-tested regenerative agriculture principles such as inoculation, mulching, composting, cover cropping, and more.
Biodiversity Enhancement
In many ways, this final phase is the apex of all of the preceding phases. Once space has been made, resources have been freed and made available, and herbivore obstacles that mimic the structure of old, natural forests have been put in place, planting takes place. Deciduous trees, shade tolerant conifers, and, when seed sources are deficient, strategically selected herbs and shrubs, are planted or seeded. Special emphasis is put on species that sustain wildlife and improve forest health and functionality, especially pollinator and insect populations, but also soil building, fire resistant, moisture conserving species.