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January 26, 2004

Forest industry takes step towards boreal conservation

Backgrounder

Ducks Unlimited Canada/Forest Products Association of Canada working agreement on watershed-based conservation in Canada's boreal forest

Canada's boreal forest contains a rich inventory of water resources, covering fully one third of the expanse of the forest in lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, and riparian areas. More than four million people live in boreal communities that depend on these water resources while tens of millions of other Canadians downstream are reliant to some degree upon the watersheds of Canada's boreal forest.

While environmental protection measures, including regulations and guidelines, have been developed for the forestry industry, many of these have tended to focus on site level impacts, and there is an opportunity to expand work directed at the landscape level.

As a result, Ducks Unlimited Canada has been pursuing a broad-based, watershed-focused forest conservation planning approach based on scientific principles that will promote sustainable management of the water and wetland resources of the Canadian boreal forest.

In conjunction with the strategic partnership with the Canadian Boreal Initiative, the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) has signed a working agreement with Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) to help improve our understanding of important wetland and water systems in Canada's boreal forest.

The working agreement is aimed at addressing the following issues:

• Promote the development of enhanced tools to improve the analysis of key wetland/riparian and water source areas.
• Provide information on the hydrologic cycle in the Boreal forest, which will help define sensitive wetlands/riparian areas/water source areas.
• Promote, in consultation with FPAC and FPAC members, the development of information and risk assessment tools that may be incorporated in forest management planning around water and wetlands.
• Provide validated waterfowl and waterbird habitat models that will function as inputs for further modeling regarding forest management planning and the management of stand attributes for the maintenance of wildlife habitat and biodiversity.

DUC's Boreal Program is already actively pursuing planned conservation of water, wetlands and associated upland habitat, particularly in the Western Boreal Forest.

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The Program has several components leading to conservation of wetlands, water and associated upland habitat:

• inventory of wetlands and uplands – involving a sophisticated earthcover mapping program that defines and describes the wetland habitat;
• assessment of waterbird use of the boreal wetland habitat – involving an inventory of waterbirds through stratified data collection and predictive modeling at the regional level; and
• regional water chemistry surveys, riparian bird surveys and invertebrate surveys at selected sites.

FPAC has committed an initial $100,000 contribution to DUC's boreal program.

DUC and FPAC look forward to the ongoing opportunity to partner on watershed-based boreal forest conservation projects in the future.

For more information, please contact:

Gary Stewart
DUC Western Boreal Program
Tel: (780) 489-8110

Kelly Ouimet
FPAC
Tel: (613) 563-1441 ext. 313

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