Inland rainforest

The inland rainforest,^[1] also known as the inland temperate rainforest in the classification system of the WWF, is a temperate rainforest in the Central Interior of British Columbia. It is part of the Interior Cedar Hemlock (ICH) zone of the biogeoclimatic zones system developed by the BC Ministry of Forests, in the Rocky Mountain Trench. One of the richest parts of this wet belt lies 110 kilometres (68 mi) east of the city of Prince George and nearly a thousand kilometres (600 miles) east of the coastal rainforests. The oldest and most diverse parts of the forest are typically found on northeasterly aspect wet toe slopes, with Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) trees over 1,000 years old and undisturbed forest stands much older than that. Some of these toe-slope benches were cleared in the 1960s to develop the Yellowhead Highway, with the added result that most of the remainder became easily accessible to industrial logging and recreation, and more recently to research and interpretation. As a consequence there are only a handful of the best sites left undisturbed in 2008.

In 1987, a science-based conservation group Save-The-Cedar League was formed. With the establishment of the new University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince George the 1990s, further research continued to highlight the significance of the ICH zone east of the city. The arrival of a defoliating insect outbreak, the Hemlock Looper, Lambdina fiscellaria fiscellaria, resulted in increased salvage logging of old cedar stands along the Yellowhead Highway. This was reduced by the province's chief forester in the early 2000s as the appreciation of non-timber values of the zone began to be realized and as the Mountain Pine Beetle catastrophe spread across the Interior Plateau to the west and large-scale salvage logging moved in that direction.

As the Mountain Pine Beetle wave passes, attention is returning to the mountain wet zones. Some of this came to a head in 2006 with the development of an old growth forest trail by the nearby small community of Dome Creek in the richest site yet found, a place that was also scheduled to be logged. The resulting socio-economic and ecological issues were investigated in a documentary film, Block 486.

La selva tropical interior de la Columbia Británica es una selva de montaña cubierta de nieve donde las profundas capas de nieve invernales y las copas de coníferas antiguas propician una abundancia excepcional de líquenes epífitos (principalmente Bryoria y Alectoria ). Estos líquenes sustentan la ecología invernal del caribú de montaña, que pasa aproximadamente de cinco a seis meses alimentándose casi exclusivamente de ellos en la superficie de la nieve. La síntesis de estudios de la copa muestra que la hiperabundancia de líquenes a nivel de rodal se limita en gran medida a bosques de más de 120-150 años, porque la arquitectura de las ramas, la ventilación y la estabilidad necesarias para soportar grandes cantidades se desarrollan tardíamente en la sucesión . La tala industrial ha fragmentado este bioma y reducido la abundancia de líquenes en la copa; la selva ahora funciona como el último refugio del caribú, por lo que la conservación depende de mantener grandes extensiones conectadas de bosque antiguo no gestionado a través de las altitudes, ya que los sistemas de rotación corta y de tala parcial no recrean condiciones de forraje equivalentes. ^{[ 2 ]}

La zona de cicuta de cedro interior (ICH) reviste especial importancia en relación con el cambio climático. Las proyecciones de calentamiento climático sugieren que, para mediados de siglo o poco después, esta zona podría constituir el límite sur de la ICH. ^{[ 3 ]} La zona ICH también se habrá extendido por gran parte del área de Prince George y más al norte. Por lo tanto, la Fosa de las Montañas Rocosas, al este de Prince George, ofrece la última y mejor oportunidad para preservar algunos de los raros yacimientos de ICH de «Nivel 1».

• Contribución de plantas no vasculares como líquenes y musgos a la función del ecosistema a lo largo de gradientes altitudinales en el oeste de Canadá. Archivado el 26 de enero de 2009 en Wayback Machine.
• Dome Creek Ancient Forest websiteArchived 2008-01-30 at the Wayback Machine
• Documentary film, Block 486 - Narrative
• North American Moose Conference (2007)
• Nash, M (2007). Exploring Prince George - A Guide to North Central B.C. Outdoors. Rocky Mountain Books. ISBN 978-1-894765-49-7.
• King, D; Nelson, R (2007). Central Interior Trail Guide Volume 1 - Prince George and Region. Caledonia Ramblers Hiking Club. ISBN 978-0-9692137-1-0.