The Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development (DNRED) completes a highly detailed inventory of the forest to determine what the forest looks like across the province’s landscape. Tree species, size, quality, and quantity (volume); and broad forest types are included in the inventory. The provincial forest inventory is done on a 10-year cycle. Harvest, silvicultural and natural disturbance updates are added to the inventory annually to ensure the most current information is available. The forest inventory is the foundation of all sustainable forest management, land use planning and policy decision making and adheres to the following principles:
- renewed at an appropriate frequency
- collected across all land ownerships
- supports management and regulatory frameworks
- provides baseline data for evaluation and reporting on landscape conditions and trends
- embraces innovation
- ensures methods are repeatable
To build a detailed inventory, DNRED uses multiple tools including: LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), satellite imagery, aerial imagery, and on-the-ground forest measurements.