IN 1991, Darryl Hebert made a pact with the devil. At least, that鈥檚 what it looked like when Hebert, a respected Canadian wildlife biologist, signed on to work with Alberta Pacific Forest Industries, a logging company owned by the Japanese giant Mitsubishi. Alpac had just won a contract to cut trees for pulp on 6 million hectares of forest in northeastern Alberta, more than a fifth of the state鈥檚 forest. Soon after, the company announced plans to build one of the world鈥檚 largest pulp mills to process the timber.
When the news sank in-that a foreign company with no long-term stake in the region might try to clear-fell the forest-a wave of protest swept the province. The plan aroused such outrage that Alpac began to realise it needed a different approach if it was to do business in Alberta.
So it was that at the height of public alarm, Hebert stepped into the fray. While others saw logging as one of the greatest threats to the country鈥檚 wildlife, Hebert saw something else: an opportunity to point Alberta鈥檚 logging industry in a new direction. In place of the chequered pattern of logged and unlogged land that mars so much of western North America, he hoped to substitute one that looks more like the forest鈥檚 natural pattern of disturbance from fire. Forest organisms should find such a pattern easier to adapt to, he reasoned, so minimising logging鈥檚 impact on biodiversity.
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Alpac agreed it was worth a try and began to sound out Hebert. 鈥淲e philosophised for a year before I came here,鈥� says Hebert. 鈥淲e agreed that we were going to change and build a new model.鈥� His salary now comes from Alpac, but Hebert insists that he still puts the forests first. 鈥淚鈥檝e been fighting the forest industry for 25 years,鈥� he says passionately. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 buy me.鈥�
It will be several years before Hebert knows whether his career gamble has paid off. Already, a few other forestry companies are discussing the idea of making their logging look more like fire-but, like Alpac, they have hardly begun to make the changes that will be needed. Indeed, forest ecologists are themselves only just beginning to understand how closely, and in what ways, logging might mimic fire, and so preserve the forest鈥檚 fauna and flora.
Most importantly, the Alberta government must give its approval and support, because the new forest practices could be condemned as merely inefficient logging. Many people on all sides worry that the government will bend to pressure from old-fashioned logging companies and fail to give its full backing to the new ideas. But if Hebert and others like him succeed, Alberta will find itself in the vanguard of a new forestry.
Alberta is an ideal place to try a new approach. Its pulp industry is relatively young. As a result, vast areas of virgin forest-of mixed aspen and spruce- remain in the northern half of the province. There are few pulp mills, which gives forest managers the freedom to decide how many trees to cut each year without feeling economic pressure to feed the hungry appetite of the mills.
The new strategy mapped out by Hebert takes advantage of the fact that fire is a regular and widespread occurrence in the northern forests. Wildfires, usually sparked by lightning, torch about 1 per cent of northern Alberta in a typical summer, burning anything from tiny spots of a hectare or less to vast conflagrations that can blacken more than 200 000 hectares. As a result, even virgin forest is a patchwork of trees of different sizes and ages.
This varied landscape supports a surprisingly rich flora and fauna, including 45 species of mammals, 250 bird species, and between 500 and 600 species of plants. Some animals, such as snowshoe hares, thrive in the clearings created by recent fires. Others, such as woodpeckers and squirrels, prefer the fallen logs and standing dead trees of the oldest, most decrepit stands, which for aspen are rarely more than a century old. Middle-aged stands support the least biodiversity, according to a recent study conducted by the Alberta government. But these stands are the forester鈥檚 ideal because they contain the highest-quality timber. This puts conventional forest managers in direct conflict with conservation biologists, who would prefer to let stands age naturally instead of cutting them at middle age.
The new approach would restore some of fire鈥檚 randomness to the forest-and preserve the variability that is usually lost during logging. Instead of the conventional pattern of neat squares of clear-cut forest, Alpac plans to fell trees in a scattered array of irregular patches of different sizes, following the natural contours of the land as a fire would.
Instead of harvesting each stand of trees at the ideal age of 60 years, the company intends to cut stands of different ages, between 50 and 120 years old. Fire also usually leaves unburnt islands of trees, so loggers would leave up to 10 per cent of the trees standing on each cut area, mostly in clumps, to serve as island refuges for forest species.
The scientists reason that if logged forests look more natural in all these ways, the plants and animals that live in them should automatically benefit. And what is good for biodiversity is also good for the company, because there鈥檚 less need for painstaking and costly attempts to conserve individual species. 鈥淭he approach gets you out of playing God. You don鈥檛 make decisions between species. You let the system play out the decisions for you,鈥� says Hebert.
While this rosy vision could work in Alberta, it may not be appropriate everywhere, says Nels Johnson, a forest ecologist with the World Resources Institute in Washington DC. In many tropical forests, and perhaps also the hardwood forests of eastern North America, he says, no single form of natural disturbance dominates, so loggers will have a harder time mimicking nature. Other critics point out that forests with a long history of logging may be locked into conventional cutting patterns, and it will take decades to restore a more natural range of ages.
Even in Alberta, logging can never mimic fire exactly. For example, after a fire, the regenerating vegetation can draw on a rich bed of nutrients-many of which end up at the pulp mill when the land is logged. 鈥淲e will never mimic natural disturbance,鈥� says Johnson. 鈥淲e can only try to get closer to it.鈥�
No one yet knows exactly how close the mimicry must become for the forest to reap real ecological benefits. But companies and critics alike are anxious to find out. Alpac alone is spending more than $1 million a year to sponsor more than a hundred university-based researchers.
In one of the widest reaching research programmes, ecologist Susan Hannon and her colleagues at the University of Alberta in Edmonton have begun a long-term study of how insects, birds and mammals respond both to their immediate habitat, and to wider changes in the local area. They already know, for example, that logging leads to an increase in the populations of predatory birds that like to hunt along forest edges, such as the great horned owl and red-tailed hawk. Birds that prefer dense forest interiors, such as the broad-winged hawk and barred owl, become scarcer.
The researchers are now radiotagging barred owls to monitor changes in their behaviour when more and more of their home range falls to the chainsaw. 鈥淲e are just starting to know what the requirements are for these species,鈥� says Hannon. Do the owls stay put and commute longer distances to find hunting grounds, or do they pull up stakes and move away permanently in search of denser forests? How much undisturbed forest do the loggers need to leave, and in what pattern, if the owls are to thrive? The answers matter a great deal to the owls鈥� odds of survival-and to the companies鈥� chances of still turning a profit if they change their logging patterns.
Some companies are beginning to make changes. Alpac has retrained hundreds of its machine operators, who now leave clumps of trees standing in logged areas. This is a move that requires the Alberta government to turn a blind eye, because according to the letter of the law, the company ought to be fined for wasting timber.
But except for these cautious beginnings, the 鈥渘ew forestry鈥� has so far been more talk than action. If you visited a cleared block at random, it would not look much different from the felled areas of five years ago, says Brad Stelfox, a forest consultant based in Tofield, Alberta, who works for Daishowa Marubeni Industries, another company pushing for new forestry practices. The true test of the companies鈥� commitment, he says, will come in the next few years, when they draw up harvest plans for the next generation of trees-a strategy that guides logging operations for many years ahead.
Some observers fear that when that test comes, few timber companies will follow Alpac鈥檚 lead. After all, every tree left standing on a plot means one fewer tree taken to the mill. And as the government places a limit on how much of its timber holding a company can cut each year, that could mean lost earnings. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e all scared it鈥檚 going to reduce their annual allowable cut,鈥� says William Fuller, an ecologist now retired from the University of Alberta.
And while Alpac, Daishowa and a few others control so much forest they can afford to spread their logging effort more thinly, most companies do not. Far from proposing a decrease in harvests, one smaller company, Millar Western, is proposing a hefty increase in the amount of timber it harvests per hectare-by boosting the growth of the trees and cutting the same patch more often.
Some critics question whether even Alpac and Daishowa will stick with their programme when serious dollars are on the line. 鈥淎re those companies cutting one tree less? No. There is no evidence that they鈥檙e doing anything yet,鈥� says Glenda Hanna, president of the Alberta Wilderness Association. Hanna trusts the good intentions of Hebert, Stelfox and other biologists working for the logging companies. 鈥淏ut how much can one or two people do, and how much pull do they have in the company? If they recommend a reduction in cut, would the company do that?鈥� she asks.
The Alberta government, too, may fall short in its commitment to the changes, says Hanna, echoing the views of others both within and outside the government. For several years, a coalition of government, forest industry and environmental groups has been hammering out a new plan for managing forests that incorporates many features of Alpac鈥檚 approach. The plan, known as the Alberta Forest Conservation Strategy, is due to be presented to the government this summer.
But few expect the government to back the new forestry wholeheartedly. 鈥淚f industry comes back and says this is too radical and we can鈥檛 accept it, then government is not going to push it upon the industry,鈥� says Dave Borutski, project manager for the strategy at Alberta鈥檚 Department of Environmental Protection.
At a meeting late last month, the Alberta Forest Products Association, a trade association of timber companies, surprised many observers by endorsing the conservation strategy. This support may make the government more likely to back the strategy as well. Indeed, says Borutski, the loudest dissenting voices now come from Hanna and other environmentalists, who feel the plan doesn鈥檛 go far enough in protecting forests.
Winds of change
These political struggles have almost an exact counterpart at the opposite end of the Americas. In Tierra del Fuego, at the southernmost tip of Chile, a timber company called Forestal Trillium has begun a similar effort to make logging look like natural disturbance. On Trillium鈥檚 277 000 hectares of mainly virgin forest, most natural disturbance comes not from fire, but from winds that knock down individual trees or small clumps.
To mimic this pattern, the company plans to harvest only half the trees in each plot, leaving the forest canopy largely intact.
Like Alpac, the company is also investing in research, allotting $2 million for studies of the long-term effects of this method of harvesting. 鈥淪ustainability is a moving target, so we see this project as an experiment,鈥� says Mary Kalin Arroyo, a plant ecologist at the University of Chile in Santiago, who leads the research.
However, Trillium鈥檚 forestry plans have met resistance from more conventional forestry companies, which worry that it may set a precedent they will be loath to follow. 鈥淭here is some fear in this country over a project that鈥檚 too green,鈥� says Kalin Arroyo. At the same time, Trillium鈥檚 plans have been challenged in court by environmental groups worried that it is not green enough.
But whatever happens in Chile and Alberta over the next few years, the most significant change in the long run may prove to be a personal one. Once Alpac hired Hebert, many other logging companies followed suit and hired other respected wildlife biologists. With these scientists now working on the inside, a gradual shift in the companies鈥� thinking may now be inevitable.
鈥淚f a company wildlife biologist makes a recommendation, it鈥檚 construed as being good for the company. If a government biologist makes that recommendation, it鈥檚 construed as a restriction,鈥� says Daniel Lousier, a forestry researcher at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George. 鈥淎nd it鈥檚 not just the professional side, it鈥檚 the social side as well. You get to know wildlife biologists and see they鈥檙e really not such bad guys.鈥�
