Reviewed by Jeff Saarela (Chair of the Publications Committee), Dwayne Lepitzki (Editor-in-Chief, CFN) and Annie Bélair (Editor, T&L)

Approved by the Board of Directors on 2025-06-16

This policy applies to periodical publications and special publications. It does not apply to brochures or pamphlets.

Any publication must conform to the Club’s charitable objects:

  • “to promote the appreciation, preservation and conservation of Canada’s natural heritage;
  • to encourage investigation and publish the results of research in all fields of natural history and to diffuse information on these fields as widely as possible; and
  • to support and co-operate with organizations engaged in preserving, maintaining or restoring environments of high quality for living things.”

The Editor-in-Chief of The Canadian Field-Naturalist (CFN), the Editor of Trail & Landscape (T&L) and editors of other publications are appointed by the Board of Directors (the “Board”).

Any contracts must be approved by the Board.

The Publications Committee is responsible for operational aspects of the publication process, including appointing CFN Associate Editors and considering and approving third-party requests to reproduce material published by the Club and for which the Club owns the copyright.

The Publications Committee is responsible for the editorial policy of publications.

Changes to subscription rates, author charges or advertising rates for The Canadian Field-Naturalist and Trail & Landscape must be approved by the Board. The subscription manager may agree to agency discounts.

a. The Canadian Field-Naturalist (CFN)

The CFN publishes original scientific articles concerning natural history.

The CFN is the official publication of The Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club, in which are published minutes of the Annual Business Meeting, annual committee reports, amendments to the Articles and By-Laws, and notices concerned with Club business. The Club’s annual financial statements will also be published on the CFN website.

The CFN is published quarterly.

CFN articles are peer-reviewed.

The CFN may also publish other content that is in accord with the Club’s charitable objects, such as news, comments, tributes, review articles, and book reviews.

b. Trail & Landscape (T&L)

The objectives of T&L are:

  1. to publish articles, written for lay persons, about the natural history of Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec
  2. to present, analyze and comment on natural history issues (such as conservation) of significance to Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec
  3. to encourage the membership to make and to publish natural history observations
  4. to promote and to report on Club activities.

T&L is published quarterly.

A printed edition of T&L is provided to all members.

Institutions may subscribe to T&L.

c. Special Publications

From time to time there may be material suited to a separate publication. The following guidelines should be used:

  1. Each case will be treated on its own merits.
  2. Authors are not to profit financially from the undertaking.
  3. Assistance to authors will be considered on an individual basis.

The procedure for developing a special publication is:

  1. Any proposed publication must be recommended to the Board by the Publications Committee.
  2. The Board must approve the proposed publication in principle, along with an initial budget for preparatory work.
  3. The Publications Committee will then organize the project. It is authorized to:
    • Draft contracts for editors or authors
    • Prepare budgets
    • Research funding sources and/or proposals to collaborate with other organizations
    • Research production aspects such as printing and layout, and marketing.
  1. The authority to sign contracts rests with the Board.

The Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club has published The Canadian Field-Naturalist (and its predecessors) for over a century. In 1967, the local natural history journal Trail & Landscape was introduced, replacing The Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club Newsletter that had appeared irregularly for more than 25 years. For about a decade, beginning in 1976, a bimonthly newsletter of local bird sightings, The Shrike, was published. Various special publications appeared from time to time. A formal publications policy to underpin all of these activities was enunciated in 1983 and published in CFN 97(2): 231-234 (1983). The background to this policy is described in the preamble to the latter.

During the ensuing decade, minor revisions to the original Publication Policy were made from time to time. With the cessation of publication of The Shrike, and the change of Trail & Landscape to quarterly issues, a more detailed revision was required. On the recommendation of the Publications Committee, Council approved a revised version in 1994, which was published in CFN 108(1). The Committee later made one minor change: rather than review the policy annually, the Publications Committee sought and received approval to review it as needed.

The policy was next revised in May 2025 and approved by the Board of Directors in June 2025. This is the version published here.