EDITORIAL / ÉDITORIAL

Traditionally, forest management meant providing wood to satisfy industrial and human needs, such as shelter, fuel and food.In Canada, for more than a century, the conservation of fish, deer, birds and other wildlife and their habitats has been the driving force in managing forests for purposes other than wood products.Modern societies are now concerned with the provision of multiple forest values (i.e., social, cultural, environmental, economic) based on sustainable forest management.Moreover, we have also recently begun to consider the value of ecological services (i.e., clean air and water) as an additional contribution of forested ecosystems to the well-being of our societies.Of the multitude of values derived from forests, ecological services may be one of the most difficult to communicate to the public as the benefits are not as obvious as those of other forest values.Problems with ecological services become more evident only when critical thresholds have been reached, provoking significant detrimental effects to the landscape, such as flooding and erosion.Canada has played a leadership role in developing policies and instruments to support, and measure our progress with respect to sustainable forest management.The criteria and indicators that were developed via the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers in the mid-1990s have been instrumental in moving sustainable forest management from a basic concept to a measurable management approach.The criteria and indicators can be used to measure the integrity of wildlife habitats and biodiversity.These measures provide a means for governments and private corporations to assess their effectiveness at managing forests sustainably, and to adapt their policies and/or operating practices to improve their performance.Canadians have also come to realize that our immense country and forested habitats are part of the global ecosystem.The impacts of global climate change, for example, have begun to become more concrete with the significant fluctuations in weather regimes.Invasive species, such as the mountain pine beetle that were typically hampered by cold winter temperatures, have thrived in the mild winter conditions of the past few years in British Columbia and have caused severe lodgepole pine mortality.As well, warmer and drier summers are considered to be a major contribution to the increase in forest fires across the country.In a similar global way, Canada is now exposed to new marketplace factors.Access to domestic and international markets is increasingly dependent on a company being certified to internationally recognized standards, or to specific standards developed by foreign clients of our forest products.Therefore, companies and forest managers in Canada must operate in consideration of global economic and social standards to be successfully competitive.With regard to the management of Canada's forests, international public opinion indicates that strong concerns exist for the protection of biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and the rights of Aboriginal peoples.These three values are, in fact, the focus of the Climate Change Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, both of which are international conventions that have been ratified by Canada.Due to the complexity of these values, selected indicators are commonly used to evaluate forest management practices and Canada's fulfillment of our international obligations under these con- E D I T O R I A L

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