Meeting visual quality objectives with operational radial-strip partial cutting in coastal British Columbia: A post-harvest assessment

Abstract

The spectacular aesthetic quality of British Columbia's coastal forests has long been an issue for forest managers who must often meet government-imposed visual quality objectives. The result of such objectives within traditional clearcutting silvicultural systems has often been large reductions in otherwise allowable timber removals. In this document we present the results of a post-harvest analysis of an operational trial using radial-strip partial harvesting in a highly visually sensitive area of coastal British Columbia. The analysis confirmed that this innovative form of partial harvesting successfully met visual quality requirements, while concurrently permitting significantly more timber extraction, in an operationally feasible manner, than would have been available under a traditional clearcutting system. We attribute the visual success of this harvest method in a highly visually sensitive area primarily to: (1) the radial pattern of linear clearings where it is not possible to see more than a few cleared strips from any one vantage point; (2) the avoidance of a regular series of parallel geometric clearings; (3) the narrow clearing width, which maximises bare ground screening; (4) feathered edges, which avoided highly contrasting edges of the strips; and (5) green tree retention across age classes. Faller and management experience with this method is expected to result in higher productivity and lower costs in the future. This harvesting technique appears to present a viable alternative to clearcutting for forest managers working in visually sensitive areas. Future work should focus on understanding and determining impacts on other factors such as ecological values and silvicultural goals. Key words: aesthetics, partial-cutting, simulation, VIA, visual impact assessment, VQO, visual quality objective