The Department of Agriculture and Forestry is currently conducting a comprehensive land use inventory across Prince Edward Island. The inventory is designed to examine current land uses such as agriculture patterns, forest conversions, wildlife habitat requirements, soil erosion potential and the impact of the current forest harvest. The information will be used to prepare public reports on the state, health, harvest and management of the Island's natural resources, including public and private forests, and to provide land owners, forest industries, conservationists and policy makers with an accurate picture of current resource conditions and trends.
Forest inventory information is collected in a number of ways including the use of aerial photographs and the measurement of ground-based study plots. This year, approximately 300 forest study plots are being established in typical stands in the western part of the Island on randomly selected public and private properties. Over the years, each site will be revisited periodically to obtain information on tree species, forest growth and development, forest plant communities or insect and disease problems.
"The information collection process is consistent with forest inventory systems used across Canada to get unbiased and usable information on current forest conditions," said Bill Glen, manager of Resource Modelling and Inventory. "Since much of the province's forest resource is privately owned, letters have been sent to the owners to inform them about the program, seeking their cooperation and reassuring them about the confidentiality of any information collected."
The collection of this information is nondestructive to the land owner's property and places no restrictions or obligations on that property. "It is important that land owners understand that this project does not place any limitations on their activities and that they are free to harvest or manage the area as they see fit," said Mr. Glen. "The whole point of the exercise is to get impartial information on the forest resource. If land owners treated the sample area in a way which was different from any other part of their woodlot, it could interfere with the interpretation of the data and therefore create a false picture of current forest conditions."
Mr. Glen said the success of the comprehensive land use inventory depends on the cooperation of the private sector because so much of the Island is owned and controlled by individuals such as farmers and woodlot owners. He said anyone who has a study plot established on their land should contact him at (902) 368-4700 if they require more information.