An ecosystem-based approach to managing outbreaks of mountain pine beetle would seek to decrease the size of the affected area as well as the duration of outbreaks, now and in the future, while not compromising forest biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.

This approach should, at least, have the following components:

--A clear statement of the management objectives, including a monitoring system to assess whether the objectives are met.

--Use of silvicultural treatments that retain forest structure at the stand scale to maintain ecological functions associated with dead and dying trees. This requires harvesting within an area's range of natural disturbance variability. It also involves retaining tree species like Douglas-fir, true firs, larch, and spruce that generally are not hosts for mountain pine beetle, as well as allowing fire and mountain pine beetle disturbances to structure the landscape.

--Assessment of logging methods other than large-scale clearcutting to salvage diseased trees. Possible alternatives include: thinning, small-patch selection of affected trees, falling and burning, and pheromone baiting. When choosing a logging method, it is important that forest managers embrace innovative silvicultural systems that do not restrict future planning to one management path such as short-rotation clearcutting, which would reduce options for other forest uses and values like traditional aboriginal uses, recreation, and maintaining habitat for mature and old-growth dependent species.

--A preventative approach rather than an attempting to control outbreaks once they have occurred. Preventative methods include annual aerial assessments for early beetle detection, creation of a forest with diverse tree species, and timely responses to outbreaks at the early stages.

--A focus on long-term beetle dynamics, with particular attention to the possible effects of various logging methods and forestry practices on the susceptibility of the host trees to beetle abundance and distribution.

--Efforts to use logging methods that will not compromise species and ecosystems deemed threatened or endangered by provincial or federal legislation.

--An evaluation of the effects of building roads into affected areas and maintaining them as this can be as problematic as the effects of logging diseased trees on the forest biodiversity, and must be considered when determining management methods. Because pine beetles are a natural component of the forest, the Suzuki Foundation believes that efforts to reduce economic losses due to mountain pine beetle should be suspended when risks to biodiversity and wildlife are unacceptable.

--Efforts to retain large areas (1000 hectares and greater) of dead and dying trees to increase landscape-level complexity of stand types.

--Incorporation of a post-beetle suppression recovery strategy that focuses on the following:
a) retaining structural diversity in the forest, including snags and downed logs;
b) providing large areas, ie. whole watersheds, connected by forest across the regional landscape;
c) managing for a more natural mix of seral stages, allowing young stands to mature, and managing plantations on longer rotations;
d) managing for large, unfragmented patches of forests;
e) reducing road construction and deactivating