Protecting Forest Floor in Place Rather than Stripping it Off is a Better Strategy to Regenerated Temporary Drilling Pads

On the lower side of the pad, where the forest floor was protected from disturbance, there were approximately 10 times as many aspen sprouts that were at least 3 times as tall as sprouts in the upper side where the forest floor was stripped off and rolled back after re-contouring. Furthermore, the protected areas had at least as many vigorous suckers as in the adjacent clearcut (control) sites. Therefore, moderate amounts of disturbance in protected areas had little influence on the aspen recovery in comparison to the clearcut areas