In some cases, figures are either unavailable or too small to be expressed or included in the national aggregate values. Detailed caveats on the quality or completeness of annual data from individual provinces and territories, including explicit indications of which data are estimates, can be found by generating customized reports from the National Forestry Database (NFD). Supply and harvest can be viewed by year, wood type (hardwood/softwood) and land jurisdiction (provincial, private, federal and territorial) using this database.
National aggregation can mask Crown harvests above or below the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) in individual provinces. Similarly, the provincial aggregates can mask variability among management areas. If harvest above the AAC occurs in a portion of a regulation period, it may be balanced at another time or location such that the overall AAC of the regulation period is not exceeded.
As noted in the Methods section, AACs are only a rough approximation of wood supply on Crown lands, as forest management agencies consider many policy factors beyond the ecological sustainability of the forest when they set the level of allowable harvest.
A large percentage of forest land in Atlantic Canada is privately owned. According to the State of Canada's Forests 2011, forest land is 50% private in New Brunswick, while it is 68% private in Nova Scotia and 91% private in Prince Edward Island. In Newfoundland and Labrador, forest land is 99% provincially owned, but 69% of the timber rights to Crown land on the island of Newfoundland are leased on 99-year leases to pulp and paper companies, and so it is treated as private property. Because of the high percentage of private lands in Atlantic Canada, provincial agencies that determine AACs also must assess the potential timber supply on private lands. Because private woodlots are not regulated by legislation, there is uncertainty associated with this portion of the wood supply equation. However, as the Atlantic region only accounts for about 9% of Canada's total wood supply, the uncertainty on a national scale is small.
Wood supply estimates for private lands are often based solely on the average of actual past harvests, which are generally unregulated. Although estimates are provided, it is difficult to be certain whether harvest is sustainable for these lands.
The Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program uses the total area of Canada (land and water) to calculate the proportion of the country covered by forest. About 35% of Canada's terrestrial area is covered by forest.Footnote [1] The State of Canada's Forests Annual Report and the National Forestry Database also report that an additional 5% of Canada's land is covered by "other land with tree cover" and "other wooded land".
