The ecosystem-based management of boreal forest in Quebec

(june 2010)

The ecosystem-based management concept is relatively recent in Quebec. Its gradual setting-up joins in the renewal of the forest practices to answer more adequately the ecological concerns inherent to the concept of sustainable forest development, which contains legal fondations in the law on forests.

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The certification of the forest surfaces in Canada

(march 2010)

The certification of the forest surfaces appears as a voluntary and transparent process to establish a frame of management in compliance with the principles of sustainable development of forests. The forest certification aims at guaranteeing that forests are managed in the respect for the on a local scale regional and national values.

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The period fordiste (1920 - 1970)

A period of strong industrial activity

The end of the second great war stands out at the beginning of a movement based on the keynesian ideology. It is about period going from the beginning of the years “ 1950 ” to the beginning of the years “ 1980 ”, where from the name “ glorious 30 ” ; a period of strong industrial production in several domains but also a period of big projects with the road infrastructures and the building and a period marked by the institution of big social programs such as the security of the income. This new paradigm affects the Quebec province in depth as it affects the rest of the country and all the countries of which the economy is based on a capitalist regime.

The opening of the big public forest

On the other hand, the technical progress allows to increase considerably the capacity of the means of transportation, both on the water and on the ground. Moreover, the volume of the inter-regional exchanges in resources and in transformed products increases especially since the technology allows it. Closer to us, the big public forest becomes henceforth accessible and exploitable on a commercial base.

The professionalization of the work in forest

With the end of the war 1939-45, begin a period of strong growth for several countries. Since the beginning of the years “ 1950 ”, the professionalization of the work in forest cuts with the traditional methods of the agroforestry. Formerly, the work in forest established an additional activity for the farmers because it took place in winter. Indeed, the work in forest was made by means of rudimentary tools and in a little productive way. In the first half of the last century, the weak productivity of the workers lives the lesser evil for the forest companies, these last ones assuming payroll charges relatively weak and being able to count on numerous enough teams.

However, from the beginning of the second half of the XXth century, the branch of industry in growth and the expansion of the public services come to drain the workers outside the traditional activities of the rural circles. The drift from the land and the institution of the social work after the war also come to affect the recruitment of the forest workers and the companies have then the other choice no than to turn to urban areas to recruit the missing workforce there. One find workers little prepared for the difficulties of the work in forest there and which present generally higher costs, notably in the plans of the return and the accidents. The mechanization becomes then an interesting way for the heavy industry, at the same time as an alternative become accessible with the technical progress in practically all the sectors of the economy.

Till the beginning of the years “ 1950 ”, the forestry development in Quebec as somewhere else was essentially practised according to processes and traditional tools and main restrictive factor in Quebec lived the availability of a hand of work in quantity and able of composing with the rigours of the climate and the forest land. During only decade from 1950 till 1960, the mechanical saw literally comes to darken the axe and the sciotte as the tools of harvest. Also, by the middle of the years “ 1960 ”, the transport of wood was crossed by the horse in the mechanized means and the multifunctional made its entrance to the industry.

At the beginning of the years “ 1970 ”, while the technical means allowed now to mitigate the lack of forest manpower formerly lived as an important restrictive factor, the question of the forest property and its potential consequences becomes more and more worrisome for the population. This concerns more particularly the mode of allocation of the rights of cutting.

The lightning improvement of the means of extraction and the notion of perpetuity

In the second half of the 1970s, with the deposit of the results of the first program of forest inventory, the notion of forest possibility becomes quickly worrisome for the authorities, while we realize that it now became technically possible to harvest completely what the forest produces annually and even more. In front of the eventuality of a consequent shortage of stock not only of an overexploitation of the resource but the recent damages caused by the tordeuse of the buds of the spruce, and in answer to the ascent of the concept of durable development, the government publishes a white book in 1985 entitled “ Build a forest for the future ”. Henceforth, the intervention in forest does not limit itself any more to the wooden harvest but also aims at supporting the production. The new forest policy is established on the principle of steady return. The adoption of the Law on forests in December 1986, allows to concretize a new mode of allocation of the rights of cutting ; let be the Contract of Supply and Forested Organization (Contrats d’Approvisionnement et d’Aménagement Forestier - CAAF). The new law notably foresees an adjustment of the rates of royalties according to the monetary value of wood harvested in the private forests.

The historic portrait and its analysis :

The passage in the industrial era
The draft of furs (on 1671 - 1738)
The English conquest (on 1730 - 1830)
The colonization (on 1838 - 1939)
The period fordiste (on 1920 - 1970)
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Historic glance on the forect sector in Quebec