http://hdl.handle.net/10388/11671

Johnston, M., Rayner, J., VanRees, K., McIntosh, R. (2018) Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Sustainable Forest Management and the Forest Industry in Saskatchewan. UofS Harvest - Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://hdl.handle.net/10388/11671

As the climate continues to change, forest ecosystems are experiencing stresses that have not been seen in the past. These changes are impacting many facets of the boreal forests around the world. In Canada, the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) has recommended that it is essential to consider both climate change and future climatic variability in all aspects of sustainable forest management (SFM). Forest policy and management practices need to evolve in the face of a changing climate in order to be sustainable.
In Saskatchewan, Canada, the Ministry of Environment has recognized that climate change adaptation in forest policy and management practices is required. In December 2014, stakeholders from the Saskatchewan forest industry and government came together to explore potential future climate scenarios, impacts on operations and management, and how to address adaptation for SFM in the future. Using this workshop as a starting point, this thesis examines, in more detail, some of these concerns and the gaps between policy and forest management in relation to climate change. One of the main goals of this research includes the application of the CCFM approach in a case study at the Forest Management Area (FMA) scale, to identify, develop, and mainstream tools for adaptation. Through the course of this research, the results have demonstrated that the CCFM approach can be successfully applied at the FMA level and have aided Mistik Management Ltd. (Mistik) in identifying vulnerabilities in their SFM with respect to climate change. Mistik has also developed and begun mainstreaming adaptation options to address climate change into both strategic and operational aspects of their SFM. The results from the Mistik case study are also being used by the provincial government to aid in guiding future policy adaptation and development. This will put policy makers and forest managers in a better position to assess and manage SFM vulnerabilities and mainstream adaptation options into planning and management of Saskatchewan’s forests.
The Saskatchewan provincial government and Mistik Management Ltd. (a forestry company in Saskatchewan, Canada) partnered to undertake a vulnerability assessment in order to analyze climate change and sustainable forest management. Mistik is currently developing a 20-year forest management plan and this vulnerability assessment will be incorporated into their plan. The vulnerability assessment of their management area was completed using a practitioner’s guidebook developed through the CCFM. Through this assessment, climate change impacts were identified, and Mistik’s adaptive capacity was analyzed. Based on the vulnerability assessment and the analysis of their adaptive capacity, Mistik has now begun mainstreaming the results into their forest management plan and their SFM system. Saskatchewan Environment Forest Service Branch is also using the results of the Mistik vulnerability assessment to help guide forest policy direction to increase responsiveness and flexibility and promote adaptation in management in an environment of increasing climatic uncertainty in Saskatchewan.
All three steps of this undertaking focussed on climate change at the FMA scale, and was seen as daunting to both the government and the forest managers involved. The structured decision-making approach of the CCFM framework allowed the company and government representatives to follow the logical steps from a vulnerability assessment, to mainstreaming climate change adaptations, to seeing how adaptation in the industry needed to be supported by changes to the policy and governance framework of the province. In this regard, this dissertation takes a major step forward in helping to illustrate that a process that was originally seen by all parties as a formidable task, is in fact both feasible, and quite valuable.

http://hdl.handle.net/10388/11671