List of Canadian forest policies supporting the adaptation of non-industrial private forest owners to climate change

Drawing from two comprehensive reviews (NCASI 2021; Rotherham 2017), we listed Canadian federal and provincial regulations and standards applying to forestry. We accessed each item online in July 2024 and performed a search based on [climat* OR adapt* OR private] AND [woodlot OR forest]. We also searched for non-regulatory public programs (hereafter, voluntary programs) and strategies issued at the federal or provincial scale. At the federal level, the search was performed online across the knowledge centers of the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM, https://www.ccfm.org/) and of Natural Resources Canada (NRC, https://natural-resources.canada.ca). The CCFM is a pivotal institution providing reports and studies related to federal, provincial and territorial forestry data and governance. NRC is the federal department in charge of natural resources, energy, minerals and metals, forests, earth sciences, mapping, and remote sensing. It provides reports and planning tools such as the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System or the national adaptation strategy. At the provincial level, voluntary programs were collected based on (Rotherham 2017) and on the first 50 results from Google search engine, using the province name AND forest AND [program OR strategy OR plan] AND [climat* OR adapt*].
We screened the texts collected to evaluate if they meet the following criteria: (i) relate to climate change mitigation or adaptation; (ii) refer (at least partially) to non-industrial private forests; and (iii) include any reference to any kind of support toward adaptive forest management. If so, full texts were then assessed to capture key information, including policy/program objectives, governance, and assessment reports when available.
Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon are territories, and therefore do not develop provincial regulations.