If trees are thinned in a Jasper National Park forest, is it a good thing? To hear Parks Canada and a prominent ecologist tell it, absolutely. The FireSmart ForestWise program is providing public safety while returning the forest to a more natural state of variation. But not everyone is singing such a happy tune.

“Restoring ecological integrity is one thing, but this is not what this is,” Ben Gadd says of the FireSmart ForestWise program. Gadd, the author of “Handbook of the Canadian Rockies” and a Jasper resident since 1980 has been opposed to the idea of thinning the forest around Jasper ever since it was announced. In an article written for the Alberta Wilderness Association in April, 2004, Gadd criticized Parks for selling the logs it was harvesting, and predicted that thinned areas would not provide protection from a major fire in the way that planners claimed. Two years later, he hasn’t changed his mind.

Returning to a forest structure that is more open and less homogenous is a fine idea he says, but Parks should recognize and cherish the unique character of the forest around Jasper. In the absence of fire, gradual processes of secession have created something special.

“Just by chance, because humans have intervened, we’ve been given this unique forest,” Gadd says. “The right approach is to try to maintain it.” 

Preserving the ecological integrity of the forest means making sure that the current conditions are not outside the range of natural variability, and in many places around Jasper, the density of the pine forest is simply not within that range, according to Herb Hammond. 

FireSmart ForestWise manager Al Westhaver agrees.

“There’s a range of variation and we’re trying to drive between the lines. We know that right now, we’re way over in the ditch.”

Westhaver has consulted with Hammond, a prominent ecosystem analyst and forester, on several occasions. Hammond’s last visit to Jasper was in November, when he gave the project an A grade and praised the careful approach being taken by project manager Al Westhaver and his team.

“What I see them doing is a really good example of ecological restoration, and a side benefit is the reduction of fire risk in and around the townsite of Jasper,” Hammond says. While the impetus for the project has been protecting the townsite against a catastrophic fire, Hammond’s interest in the initiative has focused on the concept of ecological restoration — the return to a more balanced landscape.

“One of the things that I have encouraged from the beginning is that I would like to see ecological restoration spread into the larger landscape,” he says. Right now, the thinning plans only involve the urban interface areas immediately surrounding the town and outlying developments. “It will improve ecological integrity in the park, significantly,” 

Hammond argues.

If this is to occur, and even as the current project proceeds, Hammond would like to see more field work done in preparation for further thinning.

“There needs to be a fair amount more field assessment on a landscape level,” he says. “In my opinion, that is really  a critical underpinning to effective management.”

Hammond would approach assessment by picking transect lines to walk throughout the area. 

“They would have to cross representative and rare ecosystem types in the landscape,” he says. “I would walk those and map two things — current characteristics and also do some forensic ecology to answer the question, what has the stand been like traditionally?” 

Knowledge about how the forest looked at one point comes from a variety of different places, says Al Westhaver. 

“There’s a whole lot of converging information. The biggest body of knowledge that we have is the fire history of the park. A number of studies have happened to determine the age structure of our forests. These studies reveal a lot about the fire regime, how often, how hot, how they behaved. What we found was that at lower elevations, fire has been very frequent.”

Information from weather records is also useful, as is the historical knowledge of aboriginal groups that inhabited the Park before its incorporation in 1907. 

“First Nations people have been using fire for thousands of years on every continent of the world. A lot of times I feel as if we’re just re-learning what First Nations people have always known about the landscape,” Westhaver says. “The more that we are bringing them into the loop and consulting with them, they are telling us that.” 

That said, Westhaver and others are always open to new information. Parks has played a major role in facilitating further research into fire and ecosystem management.

“We’ve done a lot of looking at low-intensity fires. Mainly the focus has been on the large fires,” says Westhaver. “Most of the stuff we’ve found has been corroborating our approach and our knowledge. We’re not likely going to come across any new information that suggests that we should be going in a completely different direction. It does help us fine tune things.”

One of the plan’s chief critics agrees that Parks has shown some flexibility. Ben Gadd is quick to acknowledge that Parks has begun to conduct some small prescribed burns during the winter months, as the smoke south of town indicates.

Burning in winter was one of the alternatives Gadd had proposed to thinning.

“I am delighted to see that Parks Canada is actually carrying out some winter prescribed burning,” he says. “This is excellent.” It’s also not enough, he believes. Parks Canada has treated extensive tracts of forest in Jasper’s immediate environs and this winter will be thinning zones south of town. Still on the list for future attention are areas to the west and surrounding the Jasper Park Lodge. Fire guards are being widened and extended in certain locations, but Gadd believes that major guards are the best approach to protection.

“My main point is that they should be putting in very wide fire guards — this thinning program that’s going on isn’t enough,” he says. “One of the lessons that we learned during the great Kelowna fire is that it takes a much larger fire guard to stop large fires. I’ve heard figures of up to two kilometres wide.”

Gadd proposes placing these guards well away from town to the west and south, while maintaining the forest between these sites and the town itself. The guards could be created through controlled burning instead of mechanical clearing, he adds.

Al Westhaver disagrees with the idea that a fire guard would provide effective protection on its own. The FireSmart ForestWise manager has seen first hand how easily guards can be rendered useless by an active blaze.

“We have to think of both mechanisms by which fire moves. The front moves, but then there are these embers starting dozens of spot fires that can coalesce and form new fires,” he says. “You can put in a guard or a fuel-free zone ­but I’ve seen fire jump the Slave River or the Athabasca River up north, and that’s a mile wide. Firebreaks, whether man-made or natural, are not a solution, they are only a tactic. They are part of a strategy that we can use to fight a fire.”

Having extended areas where fuel for a fire is not continuous, like the thinned demonstration zone near Lake Edith, provides the conditions for a fire to slow down and become less intense.

“We’re creating a forest that’s not fireproof but one that’s not going to be burning in the canopy or burning 

really hot,” Westhaver says. “A big fire moving through this area is going to slow down and burn closer to the ground. It will become a spark catcher rather than an ember thrower.”

Not so, says Gadd, pointing to the Okanagan Mountain fire in Kelowna. 

“I think they’re underestimating the strength of some of these fires,” he says, speaking about his friend’s experience, who lived on the border of a naturally thin forest of Ponderosa pine in Kelowna.  

“It was about the same as some of these thinned areas around here,” Gadd says. “The fire ripped right through that and it burnt down every house on his street.”

Gadd and Westhaver disagree on the best way to avoid a fire disaster, but hopefully there will be no opportunity for either man to be proved correct. On the other hand, Gadd’s other major concern with the project is an active one. Trees cut through the thinning process are sold to pay for the costs of the clearing. Simple cost recovery, according to Parks. The top end of a slippery slope, says Gadd.

“It is an artificial method of thinning the forest,” he says. “Logging does not occur in nature and it shouldn’t be happening in a national park.”

Gadd worries that because logs are heading to the mills, it will be harder to cut off the supply. The federal government is sure to be lobbied by nearby forestry companies, he says. “I’m worried that West Fraser is influencing the minister on this, to keep the logs coming to the mill.”

Herb Hammond believes Gadd’s concerns about logging are justified in general.

“I think the reason that people like Ben are suspicious of these activities is that they have many times in the past been a wolf in lamb’s clothes. They have come from timber companies who don’t really understand what ecological restoration is,” he says. “It’s a matter of planning it with an ecological bias and you don’t let costs of treatment or concerns over economic return come into the picture, particularly in a national park.”

The plan that Jasper has is an effective one, and an example to other comm

unities, Hammond says.

“Regrettably, I think that Jasper is a light in the darkness right now when it comes to this ... I would love to see Parks be much more proactive about public education. This is all about what ecological integrity is ... this would be a great opportunity to educate others about ecological restoration.”