Sustainable Forests -- 1998 - 2003
This National Forest Strategy is meant to guide Canada's efforts
in sustainable forest management as we enter a new millennium. It is a renewed plan of
action to deal in a forthright manner with the connectedness among the ecological,
economic, social and cultural aspects of forest use and conservation.
To understand the current stage of evolution in setting forest
policy at the national level, we need to review recent milestones that mark Canadian
forestry. This century has seen unequalled acceleration in human population, widespread
industrialization, globalization of markets, the advent of the information age and the
emergence of a global economy based on both material and informational resources.
In contrast to the globalization of the economy, fundamental
ideological rifts are occurring worldwide between cultures which suggest or perhaps simply
remind us of the overarching importance of reconciling economic pursuits with human values
and relations, and with nature's ability to sustain human activity.
1906 - 1992: Broadening Considerations and Interests
A broadly based conservation movement brought about Canada's
first national forest congress, presided over by Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in
1906. The congress resulted in important changes. With the cooperation of governments and
businesses, forest services were set up to protect and manage the forests, and interest
prompted Canada's first forestry university program in 1907.
The following sixty years were marked by World War I, the Great
Depression, World War II and post-war recovery. By then it was time to look again at
emerging challenges in the forest, and a series of national reviews to assess Canada's
forests began. In 1966, representatives of the forest sector across the country gathered
in Montebello, Quebec, to review forest development. In 1977, the first National Forest
Regeneration Conference was sponsored by the Canadian Forestry Association. This was
followed in 1981 by A Forest Sector Strategy for Canada. These events helped to
define the nature of the issues more clearly and to expand Canada's forest management
efforts accordingly.
In the mid-1980s, public forums on the situation of forests and
future of the forest sector were sponsored by the newly formed Canadian Council of Forest
Ministers (CCFM), culminating in a National Forest Congress in 1986. The results provided
the basis for A National Forest Sector Strategy in 1987, produced under the
direction of the CCFM. It constituted Canada's first truly national and comprehensive
statement of strategic concerns and objectives. However, in philosophy it still reflected
a primary concern with sustaining timber yields, as explained in this statement dating
from 1910: "... our legislators ... are well
aware that forests feed springs, prevent floods, hinder erosion, shelter from storms, give
health and recreation, protect game and fish, and give the country aesthetic features.
However, the Dominion Forest Reserve policy has for its motto: 'Seek ye first the
production of wood and its right use -- and all these other things will be added unto
it'."
While progress was made on key recommendations in the 1987
Strategy, the CCFM, recognizing society's changing attitudes toward its forests, set out
in 1990 to achieve consensus on much broader directions for forest management. New
directions would consider the forest ecosystem as well as social, cultural and economic
values, as expressed by the Brundtland Commission (the United Nations World Commission on
Environment and Development). Views were sought from a wide range of Canadians at regional
meetings, through workbook commentaries and in a national workshop. Successive drafts were
reviewed and, by means of hundreds of letters, phone calls and faxes, Canadians helped to
shape the final form and content of the 1992 national forest strategy, Sustainable
Forests: A Canadian Commitment.
