The Sustainability of Forest Residue for Bioenergy in Canada: What Can Biodiversity Tell Us?

The federal and provincial governments in Canada are becoming increasingly interested in biomass harvesting, in part because of recently declining markets for traditional products and associated job losses, as well as heightened public and policy debate over climate change and the need to reduce Canada’s growing greenhouse gas emissions. In a recent national scan of regulations relevant to biomass harvesting by the World Wildlife Fund and the Forest Products Association of Canada (2010), every province surveyed had made some sort of overarching policy commitment to a greater reliance on renewable fuels; the scan also found that forest biomass harvesting and related concerns about resulting environmental impacts are becoming increasingly discussed and debated across all provinces. All provinces assessed have also indicated that biomass harvesting must be conducted within existing forest management policies and guidelines. Concerns have been raised about the scientific credibility and social acceptance of the developing bioenergy sector. The report entitled “Fuelling the BioMess” by Greenpeace Canada (2011) and an internal Environment Canada report on eNGO (environmental non-government organization) and conservation group views on forest biomass harvesting in Canada (Dagg et al. 2011) highlight concerns about ecological impacts of biomass harvest including impacts on biodiversity and wildlife habitat as well as soil fertility and forest productivity. It was the opinion of many organizations that forest residue is not an acceptable biomass resource because of its importance to biodiversity and productivity (Dagg et al. 2011). There is, however, very little scientific evidence, particularly within North American forest ecosystems, to either support or deny this statement. In this paper we will review the research in Canada related to the impacts of biomass removal for bioenergy on biodiversity and describe current projects designed to address the question of how much biomass can be removed while maintaining forest ecosystem integrity as measured by biodiversity. In particular, we will describe a recent study in Chapleau, Ontario that is attempting to integrate data from a variety of taxonomic groups using a multi-trophic, ecosystem approach.