https://gwf.usask.ca/projects-facilities/all-projects/p1-adaption-governance.php

This project is a Vulnerability Assessment, including both current and future risks, of Mistik's management forest area using the existing Climate Change and Sustainable Forest Management in Canada: A Guidebook for Assessing Vulnerability and Mainstreaming Adaptation into Decision Making guidebook. The Vulnerability Assessment includes both the biophysical and management aspects of their practices as related to climate change. Mistik’s response to past and present climate related impacts, i.e., an analysis of their Adaptive Capacity will also be assessed. This is a new aspect of climate change related adaptation strategies, and will be the first of its kind in Canada. Based on the Vulnerability Assessment and the analysis of the company's Adaptive Capacity, we will work with Misitk on incorporating these results into their new 20-year forest management plan. To provide the company with bio-physical background, a tree-ring collection and analysis of suitable tree species (determined by Mistik) is being conducted to define past growth-climate related relationships from trees growing on their land base. Tree rings represent a unique source of historical annual data that have been used to identify changes in growth as a result of past climate. These data can also be used to provide trajectories on how trees will grow under future climates. These relationships will then be used to project future growth based on various GCM and CORE modeling-team derived climate scenarios for the future of Mistik’s FMA. Once we better understand how climatic changes are affecting the forest in their FMA, we will formulate the outcomes of our case study in the context of Saskatchewan’s provincial “Results-Based Regulatory approach” for the company. Non-climate factors such as First Nations concerns, economics, forest-dependent communities in the region, as well as ecological variations within their FMA will also be examined as to how they affect the current adaptive capacity of Mistik Management.