Vision

To find a workable balance, that support both our needs and the biodiversity with which we share the forest. Using a Stewardship Area focused approach that will support quality jobs, long-term wood supply for local communities, at the same time protecting and restoring mature and old-growth forest attributes. This attribute management will in turn benefit our wildlife and a wide range of other ecosystem and human values: berries, moose, marten, birds, fungi, fish, carbon sequestration, hydrology, fire control and the beauty of our landscapes.

Intent - An Umbrella Approach

Use the territory area requirements of the goshawk, as our forest Stewardship Areas across the landscape – our Umbrella. This magnificent hawk has lived in these forests for 10,000’s of years, but because of the clearcut area and rate of harvest we are now on the bring of losing her - our canary of the forest. By managing the remaining scattered goshawk territory areas (~6,000ha each*), as de facto Stewardship Areas for biodiversity we can save the goshawk and manage for the multiple other species and values on which we rely, and that rely on us. Within these areas silviculture – harvest can continue but will be balanced to maintain the landscape scale stewardship attributes and values of the forests – we are not the only ones living and reliant on the forest. Our goal here is to explore and support this path forward, for us and for those who follow in our footsteps.

(* Goshawks are year-round residents in our forests. They are site faithful using the same nesting areas for generations of birds (possibly 100’s to 1,000’s of years), and once adjacent pairs nests were found regularly spaced ~ 5 km apart. They rely on the surrounding forest for food – hunting within 3-5 km of the nests. Each territory is some 6,000ha in size - roughly 7 km across. They are supremely adapted to the natural forest landscape – fire, beetle, blowdown patches, edges and riparian. BUT like many wildlife species they cannot use the clear cuts and tree plantations that follow. From several thousand pairs in the past, only a few hundred pairs now remain across huge tracts of landscape from Haida Gwaii - Terrace – Prince George and beyond.)