Forests and Wildlife

Forests are a dominant part of the landscape in British Columbia and provide essential ecological proceeses (such as nutrient cycling), as well as important habitats, for thousands of species of plants and animals. In British Columbia, the kinds of forests vary geographically and include cool wet rainforests of western hemlock and western redcedar on the coast, hot dry interior forests of Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine in the southern interior, stunted black spruce forests of the northern boreal plains, and hardy Englemann spruce and subalpine fir at higher elevations.

In British Columbia, forests are an important part of the economy as paper and wood products are sold to both local and international markets. The result of this resource-based economy is habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and a reduction in average forest age (as a result of short rotation periods) and diversity (as a a result of single species re-planting). Forests are also susceptible to fire and insect outbreaks - both natural components of forest ecology, but increasingly problematic for human livelihood as a result of previous fire suppression and climate change.

In this section of our website we aim to provide reports and papers that synthesize information on specific topics related to forests and wildlife. Presently, two reports are available:

1) Wind, E., M.I. Preston, and A. Chan-McLeod. 2005. Assessing songbird habitat at different spatial scales. Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife Studies. Report No. 5. 8 pp.

2) Preston, M.I. Effects of terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates on forest dynamics: an overview for the conservation of biodiversity. Biodiversity Centre for Wildlife Studies. Report No. 7. 13 pp.