Members Directory
Media Centre
If you’ve been searching for press releases, logos, photos or statistics, look no further: this is the section where you ’ll find everything you need.
In addition, the Centre also features the forest profile for each of the regions in which our industry is active, plus the latest news concerning the QFIC. The Media Centre is a genuine clearinghouse of information.
Questions and Answers
Of course not! Today, the harvesting techniques used are respectful of soils and small trees. These techniques even accelerate the forest renewal rate. As a result, year after year, Québec maintains a healthy amount of trees in the forests. Moreover, new forests are often twenty times as dense as they were before harvest. Current harvesting techniques are perfectly suited to each type of forest. Notably, this is the case in Boreal Forests. In a sense, current harvesting techniques imitate natural forest cycles!
No. In fact, the forest industry makes sure that forest harvesting is synchronized with the rate at which a forest grows. In other terms, the industry adapts its management strategies to the forest's natural cycle. By doing so, not only does it ensure the survival of forests, but it also preserves many species of plants as well as thousands of jobs in non urban regions. In Québec, 250 municipalities are principally dependent on the forest industry; this means that one job out of seven is forest related.
Because trees simply do not live forever. All forest stands grow to a critical age at which they begin to decay and die. In Québec, a fir will reach maturity at the age of 70, a white spruce at 85, and a black spruce at 120. At this time, some 27% of our forests are mature. Even if these trees were not harvested, they would eventually die all the same. As part of a natural process, they will be replaced by a new generation of trees. And, in what comes as good news for the human race, young forests capture carbon dioxide more effectively and thus contribute more to purifying the air everyone of us breathes.
Because wood is the basic component of thousands of products we require on a daily basis. Moreover, it is much more ecological to use wood and wood-derived products. As a society, we need paper whenever we write a text, or publish newspapers, magazines, and books. We also need wood-derived products whenever we package products or build houses, and so on. The forest industry is the foundation of a significant portion of Québec's economy. We can count ourselves lucky to have such a useful, generous, and bountiful resource to hand. What would we do without it?
Firstly, clearcutting is a harvesting method of the past that was performed without respect for the forest environment. Harvesting was thus carried out with no restrictions whatsoever. Nowadays, this process has been banned and is no longer used. As a matter of fact, harvesting techniques and equipment have evolved so much that the expression "clearcut" no longer reflects reality. New techniques enable the protection of soils and the promotion of regeneration. Let us also emphasize that smaller trees are increasingly being protected. All in all, today's forest workers only harvest mature trees while protecting forest environment.
No. Actually, some 90% of Québec's forests is public and belongs to the people of Québec. What the government grants to the forest industry by contract is a set of rights along with duties and responsibilities. Harvest rights generate multiple economic activities and provide thousands of direct and indirect jobs. This includes healthy management duties such as the obligation of ensuring Québec's forest sustainability. This contract with the government is based on a value that we all share: an environmentally concerned economic growth.
Surprisingly enough, and contrary to popular belief, 80% of harvested forests do not require any reforestation by humans. Regeneration is achieved naturally! Both the industry and the government closely monitor growth in order to ensure that tomorrow's forests will be healthy and bountiful. Current harvest-ing methods are designed to respect soil characteristics so that regeneration occurs more quickly and smoothly. In fact, young, regenerated forests grow in so densely that forest workers are sometimes needed to thin them.
By imitating forest natural dynamics, the changes caused by harvesting re-create what nature has already achieved: renewal. Forest, flora, and fauna, which for the main part constitute the forest ecosystem, make up a constantly evolving system. The fauna has adapted to its constantly changing environment. Thus moose, deer, foxes, groundhogs, birds have populations that are accustomed to the environment and are all getting something out of it. For example, contrary to an old forest, a young forest offers an ideal habitat for hares and deer. After a few years, however, moose will be the typical guests of that habitat!
- The renewal of Québec's forest: Questions and answers
( PDF Document 2,60 MB)
