Evaluating the effects of uneven-aged management, clearcutting, and partial cutting on the sustainability and resilience of the boreal mixedwood forest

加拿大的北方森林提供木材，维持了整个林业工业，但它在碳储存和封存、为生物多样性提供栖息地、为娱乐和旅游提供机会等方面所起的作用也越来越受到重视。因此，人们对管理森林以提供多种生态系统服务越来越感兴趣。砍伐森林很少被视为可持续森林管理的工具，部分砍伐（分两到三步进行砍伐，每步之间相隔几十年）和不均匀的树龄管理（每个林分只有一定比例的树木被砍伐）正在获得更多的公众支持。这一呼吁部分是基于大量的发现，在伐木后的最初几年，在林分尺度上，部分砍伐和不均匀的管理为生物多样性提供了更多的栖息地，储存了更多的碳，并且比完全砍伐更适合娱乐和旅游目的。然而，很少有研究审查了部分砍伐和不均衡的树龄管理对森林和相关林业的可持续性的大规模长期影响。初步研究表明，这种做法的一个潜在的长期、大规模影响可能是修建的道路比在完全砍伐的情况下要多。由于道路建设涉及到永久性的森林损失，野生动物物种的潜在死亡，以及维护和建设的经济成本，以及与相关的运输增加相关的碳排放，如果不仔细规划，部分砍伐和不均匀年龄管理的好处是否真的会超过成本，目前尚不清楚。通过这个项目，我们将研究部分砍伐和不均匀树龄管理对魁北克中部北方混交林的环境、经济和社会可持续性的大规模、长期影响，调查各种空间配置，以最大限度地降低这些替代管理方法的成本和效益。

Canada's boreal forest provides timber, maintaining an entire forestry industry, but is also increasingly valued for the roles it plays in carbon storage and sequestration and in providing habitats for biodiversity and opportunities for recreation and tourism, among other things. Thus, there is increasing interest in managing the forest for multiple ecosystem services. Clearcutting is rarely seen as a tool for sustainable forest management, with partial cutting (in which the forest is logged in two or three steps with decades between steps) and uneven-aged management (in which only a certain proportion of the trees are taken out of each stand) are gaining much more public support. This appeal is based partly on numerous findings that, in the first few years following logging, at the stand scale, partial-cuts and uneven-aged management provide more habitat for biodiversity, store more carbon, and are better for recreational and touristic purposes than are clearcuts. However, few if any studies have examined the large-scale, long-term effects of partial cutting and uneven-aged management on the sustainability of the forest and the associated forestry industry. Preliminary research indicates that one of the potential long term, large scale effects of such practices may be the construction of more roads than under a clearcutting scenario. Since road construction involves permanent forest loss, potential mortality for wildlife species travelling across the landscape, as well as the economic costs of maintenance and construction and the carbon emissions associated with the associated increased transportation, it is unclear that the benefits of partial cutting and uneven-aged management will indeed outweigh the costs if not carefully planned. Through this project, we will examine the large scale, long term effects of partial cutting and uneven-aged management on the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of the boreal mixedwood forest of central Quebec, investigating various spatial configurations that might minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of these alternative management approaches.