Peter Schleifenbaum, Haliburton Forest, Ontario, Canada
A private forest owner in the Canadian boreal fringe has taken a long term, and commercially successful, approach to restoring a forest ecosystem that was trashed by logging in the 1950s.
Haliburton Forest & Wild Life Reserve, located at the southern edge of the Canadian shield and 250 km north of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, was founded in 1962. The 32,000 ha (70,000 acre) industrial forest estate was previously owned by Weldwood of Canada and logged to feed a sawmill on site.
Although situated in the centre of the Great Lakes–St Lawrence tolerant hardwood region, Haliburton Forest’s ecosystem contains a number of boreal influences. This is due to its location on top of a highland feature known as the Algonquin Dome, which rises to over 600 m above sea level. Haliburton Forest’s environmental conditions are strongly influenced by its location in the lee of the Great Lakes. Extensive precipitation of more than 1000 mm/year, well distributed across all four seasons, provides favourable growing conditions. The main species of trees are sugar maple (Acer saccharum, 40%), eastern hemlock (Tsuga occidentalis, 15%), American beech (Fagus grandifolia,12%) as well as another 19 other commercially utilised tree species.
In 1958 Weldwood of Canada commissioned forest inventories, the results of which were devastating. Not only was the timber volume severely diminished from over two decades of extensive, unregulated harvesting, but the remaining forests were also of poor health, quality and form. ‘Highgrading’ is the term used to describe these past harvesting practices: only merchantable trees were removed with little consideration for the remaining stand or its environment.
In response to the study, the entire landbase was put up for sale. Some lakeshores were easily saleable, but the depleted forests were not. It took 5 years before a buyer, a German businessman, was found. Weldwood retained some limited timber rights, but the mill on site shut its doors in 1970. At this point the rebuilding of Haliburton Forest’s forests and ecosystems began.
Haliburton Forest was set up as a for-profit company, but income was hard to obtain from traditional land uses such as timber harvesting, hunting and trapping. Accordingly, the initial thrust in the development of Haliburton Forest saw investment in non-forestry related sectors such as the creation of campsites and the construction of snowmobile trails. To this day Haliburton Forest is the world’s only private snowmobiling operation and has a huge campground with over 300 sites scattered across its lands.
After several years without any timber income, the first harvests were carried out in 1976. Initially prescribed as diameter cuts (i.e. the harvest of all trees down to a certain diameter, commonly 40 cm at breast-height), the marking of trees for removal was introduced soon after and by 1988 all harvests were planned out professionally and each tree marked for harvest by professional tree markers. The focus in this tree-marking regime was the removal of the old, overmature, diseased and deformed stems. The new rules were referred to as ‘lowgrading’, as opposed to the highgrading that had dominated the harvesting practices over the previous century. At the same time it was realised that many of the trees of little merchantable value were of high environmental value as cavity or snag trees. Accordingly, some of these were deliberately retained to maintain diversity and environmental integrity inside the managed forests.
This pursuit of proper management of its forests cost Haliburton Forest money. The funds required came from within the operation by expanding the recreational and educational opportunities offered to the public. The mill site was renovated to offer accommodation to visiting tourists. An extensive outdoor education programme was developed, which today has eight full-time teachers on staff. Mountain bike trails were created in the early 1990s. In 1996 a Wolf Centre for education and research was opened to the public. Also in 1996 Haliburton Forest expanded into secondary wood manufacturing by creating a log home concept, built from eastern hemlock logs otherwise unsaleable to local sawmills. In 1998 Haliburton Forest created the world’s longest canopy walkway through the crowns of a stand of old-growth white pine. By 2002 the company’s snowmobiling operation had grown out of control and had to be reigned in with drastic reductions and limits on the number of visitors. At the same time, the winter operation was complemented with dog-sledding. In the spring of 2004, Haliburton Forest received a small tourist submarine to operate in one of its lakes.
Research agreements with numerous colleges and universities across North America have been of great importance to the overall stewardship of all resources on the land. To this day, not enough is known about the dynamics of forest ecosystems in the Great Lakes–St Lawrence tolerant hardwood region. Of particular importance was the establishment of a formal research partnership with the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto. Within several years, sound information on growth and yield, growth dynamics, nutrient budgets, water stress, light levels, etc., were obtained and incorporated into management plans.
Today, we know that the average mixed forest stand produces approximately 3 tonnes of fibre per year. Haliburton Forest’s annual harvest falls well short of this yield, because, even after 30 years, the process of rebuilding timber volumes is not complete. In 2006, 30 years after the first regulated timber harvests occurred, stands that were improved then will be re-entered for harvesting. At that point, the circle of forest management will have closed.
During the last three decades Haliburton Forest has made great strides towards a better understanding of its forests, which has resulted in much improved management. During that time an infrastructure of 400 km of roads and trails has been created, which both serves the goal of accessing timber and has allowed the expansion into outdoor recreation and related enterprises to a point where Haliburton Forest’s managed forests today attract over 200,000 visitors per year. |
