In January, professionals from across Canada met at the University of Guelph for a two-day workshop sponsored by the RIPNET and the Sustainable Forest Management network (SFMN) entitled "Sustainable Forest Management in Boreal Riparian Forests: Research, Policy and Evaluation". The goal of the workshop was to discuss and develop the conceptual basis of a Decision Support System (DSS) for sustainable management of Riparian (shoreline) Boreal Forests. The workshop was attended by 35 individuals from the forest industry, academic institutions, research organizations, government, and non-governmental organizations involved in promoting/working on issues of sustainable riparian forest management. Specific objectives of the workshop were:
- To identify and prioritize hydrological, economic, social, cultural values that will form the highest tier of the DSS (Figure 1) and determine how these can be integrated into landscape-level forest planning process.
- To identify and prioritize key biophysical and economic criteria and indicators that can be used as decision points within the DSS and identify areas of uncertainty with respect to each.
- To establish what will constitute sufficient weight of evidence to make decisions based on selected criteria and indicators.
- To identify potential management options for harvesting in riparian areas using prioritized values and criteria/indicators.
