Ontario’s Crown Forests: Opportunities to enhance carbon storage? A discussion paper

Comments were received from non-government organizations, Indigenous organizations and First Nation communities, forest industry, citizen advocacy groups, academia and individuals.

Key areas of discussion addressed three broad themes: i) engagement and consultation; ii) science-basis and approach; and iii) balancing multiple objectives:

i) Engagement and consultation

• the need for engaging and consulting with Indigenous communities, free, prior and informed consent, impacts to Indigenous peoples and accommodation
• the overall stewardship role of Indigenous communities, Indigenous involvement, co-management, and traditional ecological knowledge
• benefit sharing of emissions reductions and compensation (indigenous, industry and communities)
• Aboriginal rights and interests including treaty rights and legal ownership of emissions reductions achieved from forests
• the overall need to engage with rural and other communities who may be directly or indirectly impacted

ii) Science-basis and approach

• transparency on assumptions and uncertainty
• scope of analysis excluding Far North, private lands, unmanaged forests, parks, protected areas, wetlands, peatlands and grasslands
• temporal scale unclear (e.g. 2020, 2030, 2050 or 2100 objective)
• the need to address landscape carbon storage, the benefits of unmanaged and primary forests and the importance of old growth/conservation as carbon sinks
• varied perspectives on the roles that harvested wood products, biomass/bioenergy and/or substitution should play including the role of conservation and reduced harvest activities
• the need for full lifecycle analysis, carbon baselines, carbon accounting and to understand forest management’s current carbon footprint and ecosystem importance

iii) Balancing multiple objectives

• the importance of forests, forest sector and sustainable forest management in climate change mitigation; business as usual is already positively contributing; existing silviculture and renewal success
• balance carbon among other forest values and its trade-offs/synergies (e.g., economic growth, old growth, habitat, biodiversity, soil nutrients, fire, forest health, natural heritage, protected areas, recreational use)
• being consistent with other legislation, regulations and policy; tenure certainty; managed forest versus natural forest baseline
• impacts of climate changes on mitigation potential (e.g. precipitation, temperature); ecosystem vulnerability; and linking adaptation with mitigation activities
• consider full range of activities including longer rotations; conservation, demand for harvested wood products and current wood utilization

Comments received ranged from positive to cautious with a selection being negative. Some comments received were outside the scope of the discussion paper.

Three information sessions and a public webinar were organized during the original 62-day comment period.  In addition to the posting on the Environmental Registry, Ontario met in-person with external stakeholders and partners on more than 80 occasions between February 2015 and March 2018 on forest carbon approaches.

In response to the comments received, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry organized a two-day Indigenous Forest-Climate Forum in October 2017 and a Forest Carbon Science Forum in November 2017 structured around two-way dialogue to further explore these themes. We also organized additional regional information sessions with Indigenous Communities held in Timmins, Thunder Bay, Kenora and Bracebridge in January 2018. Based on the comments received we have also updated related Ontario.ca content to reflect several of the suggestions for changes to improve clarity.

Analysis of this feedback has been retained to inform future work on forest carbon and climate change considerations in forest management in Ontario.