Exploring the social-ecological resilience of forest ecosystem services

Natural disturbance is predicted to increase in Canadian forests as the climate continues to change. This will trigger an increased variability, and therefore uncertainty, in the supply of ecosystem services from forests. I used social-ecological systems theory to develop a forest management approach that recognizes and incorporates spatial and temporal dynamics. Social-ecological approaches integrate the role of people in ecosystems. This approach focuses on the maintenance of social and ecological resilience to change as the main management objective. I developed a structured framework that examines a resource system's social and ecological dynamics and the supply of provisioning and regulatory ecosystem services. Systems modelling was used to capture the overall behaviour of forest resources in the Cranbrook timber supply area and as a foundation for developing scenarios that identified a range of future ecosystem conditions. I then used spatio-temporal simulation models to capture a range of future environmental and social conditions, including climate change. Natural disturbance was implemented to reflect historic variability. The supply of ecosystem services, under all scenarios, oscillated through time driven by the interaction of natural disturbance and forest management, making a constant supply unattainable. A sustainable timber supply is possible if harvest levels are lower than those currently prevailing; suitable habitat for grizzly bears can be sustained at high or low levels depending on road densities and access rules. A social-ecological approach is well suited to understanding drivers of change, sources of uncertainty, and in managing the supply of ecosystem services from dynamic ecosystems.