Canada's Forest Landscape Fragments: A Second Approximation (draft)

The sustainable management of Canada's forests is an important policy priority for Canadians and this priority is acknowledged by Canadian governments and by many forest companies that operate in Canada. The anthropogenic (human) modification of forest landscapes - via road building, logging, oil and gas development, etc. - is an issue of significance for sustainable forest management. Knowing the number, locations, areas and concentrations of the remaining naturally-occurring forest landscape fragments can improve forest management and forest conservation decisions at multiple scales.

By our definition, a forest landscape fragment is a remnant of an intact forest landscape. It is a contiguous mosaic of naturally occurring ecosystems, including forest, bog, water, tundra, and rock outcrops, that is within a forest ecozone, and that is essentially undisturbed by significant human influence visible on Landsat satellite images.

The goal of the project was to map all of Canada's remaining forest landscape fragments with specified size thresholds within all eleven of Canada's forest ecozones. Forest fragments are the best remaining pieces of our once-intact landscapes and they are therefore critical to the restoration of ecosystem functioning in areas affected by human development.