NEW BRUNSWICK REPORT:
Specialty Forest Products 
by Gaston Damecour, RPF

Increasingly, we are asked to incorporate a variety of non-timber forest values with timber values in our resource management strategies. The challenge then is to effectively implement a management strategy on the ground that gives fair weight to both timber and non-timber products. Black ash is an extraordinary resource of traditional significance and an excellent example of a specialty forest product. 
AGFOR’s exposure to black ash dates back to the 1980s and the potato basket makers of the Wolastoqiyik at Tobique, New Brunswick. The potato baskets - and other items like them such as hampers and backpacks - are sturdy, durable, working baskets. They are beautiful and exquisitely made. 
The baskets are woven from strips of black ash that are produced by pounding a carefully debarked bolt lengthwise, and then lifting loosened strips of the black ash’s ring porous wood. The strips are then soaked to make them pliable.

The front end of the supply chain is the black ash tree, which occurs individually or in small clumps in mature, tolerant hardwood stands. Ritchie says it is found “in organic or sandy soils along banks of streams, lakes and other wet areas, such as bordering swamps.” Black ash is located in flood plains along streams of wider ravines, ranging from the southeastern Manitoba pinelands through southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is the only member of the ash species found in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Black ash is rarely identified - or even recorded - and usually ends up classified as other hardwoods. As such, it is not listed in the stand and stock tables.
The next challenge is to treat black ash silviculturally. The first step is the rapid identification of the tree in a production environment. To the untrained or unsuspecting eye, these trees are treated as another ash or hardwood.

This is where Krista Sockabasin enters the picture. Krista is an undergraduate in the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management at the University of New Brunswick. Using occurrence data, site characteristics, and harvest data from traditional harvesters Tobique First Nation, she has been working on a predictive model of black ash potential. Ed Swift of the CFS says the model has proven to be reasonably accurate at locating, even at a sub-stand resolution, potential black ash habitat.

Most of the criteria are already found in digital resource-management data sets. Other data such as water table and moisture regime information can be incorporated into most GIS databases.
What is remarkable is the predictability and resolution of occurrence. A GPS could alert planners, field layout workers or operators to be on the lookout for black ash and to adjust the treatment regime in that area. From the habitat description, black ash should occur in stream buffers that are typically subjected to partial removal of the merchantable volume. This shelterwood style of intervention is very compatible with the black ash’s gap replacement regeneration regime.

Dr. Charles Bourque of the CFS developed the initial model and he is continuing work with other species. The significance to the silviculture industry is the ability to predict - or at least alert - planners and operators to a possible need to adjust the treatment for black ash and, ultimately, for several other species. 

The role of the silvicultural operator in maintaining and hopefully enhancing a site’s diversity is one we should anticipate and welcome.

Gaston Damecour, RPF, NB & NS, is the principal of AGFOR Inc, a forestry business consulting firm based in Fredericton. He can be reached at 506-462-0333 or gdamecour@agfor.nb.ca.