Ecosystem-based Management Challenges for Alberta and Saskatchewan Forests

Landscape photo of managed forest

Welcome to the Ecosystem-based Management (EBM) Challenges Atlas. This project, a collaboration between Healthy Landscapes Program Lead, Dr. Dave Andison and Dr. Rick Bonar, a retired professional biologist, has resulted in a comprehensive atlas identifying the challenges of adopting EBM elements in forest land management in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The results surpassed our expectations in terms of both breadth and depth. We are thus making access to the results available in two forms. First, there is a summary report identifying the major findings. We are also making the more detailed results available through individual downloads of each of the six report sections.

Key Resources

About this Report

We have organized a complete accounting of the challenges associated with every EBM subject area—from operational to policy, site to biome, and across all partnerships and stakeholders—into an Online Atlas. Because of the volume of the findings, we organized the output by topic area.

The findings are grouped into six sections based on the Generalized Management Model. This organizes management activities into a hierarchy that flows from concept to practice, where the content of each level informs the form and function of the level below it. This model aligns well with policy and practice hierarchy development by regulators and management agencies today.

Read more in Introduction and Methods.

Why We Created this Report

The Healthy Landscapes Program has been conducting EBM-related research, demonstrations, outreach, and tool development for over 20 years. Two outreach (2017) projects (2018) suggested that EBM challenges were broader and deeper than originally assumed.

The goal of this Atlas is to map out the challenges of adopting EBM elements in all forest land management activities in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Appendices

Several associated documents are also available as part of the Atlas to provide additional transparency into our methodology and references.