Foresters and the Challenge of Integrated Resource Management

Increasing public pressure on Canada's land resources to produce a greater variety of social values indicates an urgent need for integrated resources management. This, in turn, requires a reorientation in the traditional "single resource" thinking of foresters and others. However, it is believed that the current major impediments to developing integrated resource management are to be found in the attitudes and opinions which prevail in the administrative centres of government in respect to social, political, economic, legal, and other matters. Integrated resource management is fundamentally a social concept and a prerequisite to long-term progress in this area is a better knowledge and awareness of the social-environmental needs of society on the part of all resource personnel. Foresters are closely identified in the public mind with responsibilities in wildland management and should be actively concerned with integrated resource management.