Can intensive silviculture contribute to sustainable forest management in northern ecosystems?

In the midst of changing social, ecological, and technical realities, interest in intensive silviculture has resurfaced. Intensive silviculture could build on previous silvicultural approaches, simply intensifying use of the treatments or treatment combinations identified in this paper to increase timber production, but the costs and benefits for specific treatments or treatment combinations remains unclear. Or intensive silviculture could be based on new thinking, refocusing so that increasing amounts of fibre are produced on dramatically younger, agricultural-like fibre farms located in areas that have the longest possible growing season. If fibre farming, using either natural or artificial regeneration, becomes increasingly more important, emphasis will start to be placed as much on equipment and integration of fibre production with manufacturer needs as on previously standard silvicultural treatments. Regardless of the form taken, some reject the suggested advantages of intensive silviculture, recommending instead a knowledge-intensive integrated approach or a combination of approaches. Although integrated landscape management is increasingly becoming the foundation for forest management, silvicultural direction remains unclear. Silviculturalists and managers will reap rewards by increasing silvicultural intensity only if their plans are scientifically based and socially acceptable. Before reasonable silvicultural directions can be developed, responsible parties need to frame and agree on the most realistic approaches that address both social and ecological concerns. Calls for increased silvicultural intensity are based on the recognition that status quo management could result in increasing fibre imports to satisfy local producer and consumer needs. Still, much of our naturally less productive northern forested land base seems far from ripe for increasing silvicultural intensity dramatically. Even so, those who continue status quo forest management solely may become increasingly less competitive. In an increasingly interdependent world market-based economy it is unclear whether intensive silviculture in northern ecosystems can be competitive with production in other parts of the world.