The Sicamous Creek Project was established in 1994 as part of a province-wide government response to public concern about clearcutting and its effects on biological diversity and visual aesthetics. Sicamous Creek is a cooperative project led by B.C Ministry of Forests and Range, Southern Interior Region and Thompson Rivers University. Its goal is provide information on how a high-elevation spruce-fir forest ecosystem responds to different cutting and site preparation treatments. click here.
The Opax Mountain Project, established in 1993 as part of a province-wide government response to public concern about clearcutting and its effects on biological diversity and visual aesthetics. Its goal is to help forest managers and the public better understand the options and consequences of different management systems on a range of forest values in dry Douglas-fir forests of the southern interior. It is led by the Ministry of Forests and Range, Southern Interior Region.
http://www.gov.bc.ca/rsi/research/opaxs/index.htm.
This project was developed to address the challenge of extracting commercial timber from montane spruce and sub-boreal pine-spruce forests in the west central interior of BC, while maintaining suitable habitat for populations of northern caribou.
Treatments include irregular group shelterwood systems (50% removal in small openings, 20 to 30 metres in diameter) with trees processed on the site in one set of treatments and trees processed at roadside in another set of treatments, to compare the impacts of slash on terrestrial lichen. A third treatment is group selection with 30% volume removal in 15 metre diameter openings, with processing at the stump. All treatments are compared to unlogged controls.
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/ferns/itcha
The Quesnel Highland Project was established in 1992. This project was initiated to find methods of harvesting timber from high elevation Engelmann Spruce- Subalpine fir forests, while maintaining suitable winter habitat for mountain caribou.
Three harvest treatments within the group selection silviculture system (0.03 ha. openings, 0.13 ha. openings and 1.0 ha. openings) were compared to uncut controls.
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/ferns/quesnel
The Montane Alternative Silvicultural Systems Project was established in 1992. The MASS project objectives are to test alternative silvicultural systems for coastal montane forests, document the operational costs and feasibility and study the biology and silvicultural impacts.
Four silvicultural treatments (Patch Cut, Green Tree Retention, Shelterwood and Clearcut) are compared to an unharvested old-growth control.
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/mass
The Date Creek Silvicultural Systems Project was established in 1992. The Date Creek project was established in 1990 to examine questions of how forest ecosystems function, how they change over time and what impacts timber harvesting may have. Treatments include two levels of partial cutting (30% removal and 60% removal) which are compared with both undisturbed forests and clearcuts. Canopy opening sizes range from the removal of single trees to 0.5 ha. openings, to large openings in clearcut treatments.
http://www.gov.bc.ca/rni/Date_Creek/mainpage.htm
The Upper Penticton Creek Watershed Experiment was established in 1984 to improve our understanding of hydrologic science and watershed management in the southern interior. Initiated by the B.C. Ministry of Forests and Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd., this watershed experiment now involves the collaborative efforts of federal and provincial government agencies, the forest industry and several universities.
http://www.gov.bc.ca/rsi/research/penticton/index.htm
In the Northern Wetbelt Silvicultural Systems Project, forest researchers from the University of Northern British Columbia are working with many partners, including local communities, government agencies, environmental interests, and forest companies, to better understand how forest management affects these wet mountain forests. Experimental study areas include a range of (a) uncut or unmanaged forests, (b) conventional (clearcut) harvesting, and (c) forests which have been partially harvested through different partial-cutting methods. Long-term studies are focussing on reforestation, wildlife habitat (including wildlife trees and downed logs), forest vegetation, climate, and soils.
Northern wet-belt forests include the wet and very wet subzones of the Engelmann Spruce-Subalpine Fir (ESSF) and Interior Cedar-Hemlock (ICH) Zones, and the very wet subzone of the Sub-boreal Spruce Zone.
http://wetbelt.unbc.ca/publications.htm
The Canadian Forest Service (CFS) has organized a national network of research sites, named the Forest Ecosystem Research Network of Sites (FERNS). These sites are focused on the study of sustainable forest management practices and ecosystem processes at the stand level. This network promotes this research nationally and internationally, improves linkages among sites, preserves the long-term research investments already made on these sites and provides a forum for information exchange and data sharing.
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/ferns/home