Assignment You will need to answer ONE of the questions listed below, and to provide arguments to support your viewpoint: 1) Do the economic benefits related to oil production from the Athabasca oil...

CANADA A GLOBAL LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT
CANADA A GLOBAL LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE FOREST
MANAGEMENT
1 | P a g e

Introduction
“Sustainable forest management means the environmentally appropriate, socially
eneficial, and economically viable management of forests for present and future generations”
(“Sustainable Forest Management”, n.d.). In this present era of turmoil in respect of
environmental and climatic changes the important of maintaining and safeguarding forests has
een realized by almost all the countries across the globe but few countries have succeeded in
formulating programs to save the forestry and thereby ensure their present and future citizens a
healthy environment to live in. Today’s world is a world threatened with the menace of global
warming and the primary duty of every human being now is to look after the protection of forests
directly or indirectly. And to address the issue some countries of the world has implemented
extensive programs to ensure an environmentally appropriate and socio-economically beneficial
mode of forest management. Among those few countries the name of Canada should be placed at
the top of the list. Though some group of people are not yet ready to support the claim that
Canada is an international leader in the realm of sustainable forest management, in my view, this
country should be considered as a global leader in the domain of sustainable forest management
and the policies adopted by the Canadian government along with different other organizations of
Canada to save, maintain, and manage forests properly has really turned the country into a global
leader in sustainable forest management.
Every argument and every claim has two sides and before reaching to any conclusion one
should be able to analyze and understand the two different points of views and then select one to
speak in favor of. In this respect it should be logical to go through the opinions of those groups
of people who still think that Canada should not be considered as a global leader in sustainable
CANADA A GLOBAL LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE FOREST
MANAGEMENT
2 | P a g e

forest management so prematurely. Myriads of environmentalists and individuals who are aware
of the environmental issues and issues related to the safeguarding of forests are of the opinion
that the environmental assessment (EA) is actually a primary subject of criticism in respect of
Canada’s sustainable forest management (SFA) and there these group of people questions the
contribution of the EA in Canada regarding the process of bettering the environmental
management process adopted by the government and non-government organizations of Canada.
They also argue that in Canada, specifically in the forest sector the application of the EA has
always been variable and inconsistent, and the administration of the country has rendered little
attention to the role of EA in supporting sustainable forest management (Rushton & Noble,
2012). But such claims are not without evidence and based on a case study of twenty year forest
management planning in Saskatchewan, Canada, it has been found that environmental
assessment plays a crucial role in all the processes related to forest management planning and it
is an appropriate environmental assessment which is necessary for providing greater
understanding of the level of effects that such management processes can render upon the eco-
system (Rushton & Noble, 2012) and how public engagement should be limited to a certain
degree so that the natural environment of the forests are not hampered.
Hence, it is observable that the aspect of environmental assessment on which the
Canadian government and non-government organizations have paid little attention is a crucial
factor in the realm of forest management procedure and so from this point of view the claims of
certain groups of people that still now Canada hasn’t emerged as a global leader in sustainable
forest management can be partially supported. Moreover, to strengthen their claim some
esearchers have also forwarded evidence through conducting different environmental studies in
CANADA A GLOBAL LEADER IN SUSTAINABLE FOREST
MANAGEMENT
3 | P a g e

the Saskatchewan and in different other regions of Canada that in respect of application of
environmental assessment Canada lacks any kind of unitary approach and this is because “In
Canada, the application of EA to the forest sector varies from province to province and
exemplifies a fragmented relationship leading to the assertion that forestry is an ‘orphan’ of EA”
(Rushton & Noble, 2012). Furthermore, to render more strength to the pillar of their argument
some environmentalists and researchers have also pointed out that though while claiming itself
as the global leader in sustainable forest management the Canadian administration along with
different other environmental organizations (both government and non-government) state that
environmental assessment is among Canada’s pivotal tools for environmental management but
though such claim has been made, the extent to which the environmental assessment has served
the purpose of sustainable forest management has still remained largely unknown (Rushton &
Noble, 2012). So, according to these researchers, environmentalists and groups of people, who
are against the claim that Canada is the international leader in sustainable forest management,
there are still issues to be dealt with in Canada to prove itself the global leader in the sphere of
sustainable forest management.
Though there are questions raised against the claim that Canada is the international leader
in sustainable forest management there are ample reasons behind supporting the claim to be true.
The effort on the part of any country to manage the forestry can be identified by the number of
non-governmental organizations working in the concerned...