Project Description
Mount Robson Park Forest Pest and Wildfire Risk Management Plan
Mount Robson Provincial Park is one of BC’s largest parks and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It supports a range of recreational and tourism activities and is a major transportation corridor. In the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic spreading through the park, forest managers faced a challenging decision. The pine beetle was killing vast areas of pine forest in the park, increasing wildfire risk, and threatening to expand into Jasper National Park and the working forests of Alberta. An inter-Provincial cross-agency Working Group was formed to develop a coordinated strategy to address wildfire risks in consideration of the full range of affected values.
Compass led the Working Group in a Structured Decision-Making process that provided a framework to work through both scientific questions and value-based trade-offs, such as trade-offs between benefits of prescribed burns to reduce wildfire and beetle risk with adverse effects on air quality, tourism, and park values.We designed and facilitated a series of workshops which helped the group explore different alternatives for managing wildfires and pine beetle risks, and worked with subject matter experts to guide the development of a spatially explicit risk-based approach to estimate effects on wildfire risk, mountain pine beetle risk, and biodiversity. The group reached consensus on a preferred strategy and a set of recommendations that included a prescribed burn at Moose Lake. A monitoring program for assessing long-term forest health (biodiversity, mountain pine beetle risk) and wildfire hazard was implemented.
Related Projects: Fish and Wildlife, Forests and Lands, Risk, Decision Support Tools, Structured Decision Making, Public Policy, Stakeholder Facilitation, Technical Working Groups, Multi-Attribute Trade-off Analysis
