Old growth is disappearing globally with implications for biodiversity, forest resilience and carbon storage; yet uncertainty remains about how much exists, partly because assessments stratify ecosystems differently, sometimes obscuring relevant changes. I will compare portrayals of BC’s old growth forest stratified in two ways: by biogeoclimatic unit, as per policy, and by site productivity. Analyses confirm government claims that about a quarter of BC’s forests are old growth, but find that most of this area has low productivity, including subalpine and bog forests, and that less than 1% is productive old growth, growing large trees. Within biogeoclimatic variant, nearly half of productive forest landscapes have less than 1% of the expected amount of old forest. Low productivity ecosystems are over-represented in protected forest. We suggest that the experiment of managing old growth solely by biogeoclimatic variant has failed, and that current forest policy, in combination with timber harvesting priorities, does not maintain representative ecosystems, counter to the intent of both policy and international conventions. Stratifying old growth by productivity within biogeoclimatic variant seems an appropriate method to portray ecosystem representation, potentially increasing the probability of maintaining ecosystem resilience.I will also talk about the government’s response to date to our report and to the Old Growth Panel’s report.

The Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) at UNBC hosts a weekly lecture series at the Prince George campus. Anyone from the university or wider community with interest in the topic area is welcome to attend. Go to http://www.unbc.ca/nres-institute/colloquium-webcasts to view the presentation remotely.

Past NRESi colloquium presentations and special lectures can be viewed on our video archive, available here.