Challenges
An urgent challenge now facing the scientific community is the need to mobilize efforts to understand and report on environmental changes in ways that contribute to improved decision making. Another challenge for our time is learning to sustain our quality of life without straining their capacities further and acidic soils challenge plant life in the ecozone.
Clear Cutting
Clear-cutting concerns
Decades of harvesting spruce and balsam fir — the best sources of wood pulp for paper manufacturing — have had an effect on the landscape. In the Boreal Shield, roughly 90 percent of the harvest is carried out by clear-cutting. With this method, all commercially usable trees in a block of forest — as large as 60 ha — are felled at once. After cutting, the ground is prepared for new growth. Renewing the forest — by letting it reseed naturally, or through replanting by hand or machine — does not always guarantee the growth of commercially valuable species. Careless clear-cutting can cause environmental disruption, notably soil erosion and the loss of wildlife habitats. Extensive use of clear-cutting poses another threat. It puts such pressure on the boreal forest that original species disappear. As a result, the fabric of the boreal forest is changing. Broadleaf species such as poplar and birch now usurp a domain once predominantly spruce and pine.
Decades of harvesting spruce and balsam fir — the best sources of wood pulp for paper manufacturing — have had an effect on the landscape. In the Boreal Shield, roughly 90 percent of the harvest is carried out by clear-cutting. With this method, all commercially usable trees in a block of forest — as large as 60 ha — are felled at once. After cutting, the ground is prepared for new growth. Renewing the forest — by letting it reseed naturally, or through replanting by hand or machine — does not always guarantee the growth of commercially valuable species. Careless clear-cutting can cause environmental disruption, notably soil erosion and the loss of wildlife habitats. Extensive use of clear-cutting poses another threat. It puts such pressure on the boreal forest that original species disappear. As a result, the fabric of the boreal forest is changing. Broadleaf species such as poplar and birch now usurp a domain once predominantly spruce and pine.