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There is no whole-tree harvesting allowed on Crown lands. Bob Bancroft and
I suggested this be enacted back in 2010 during the Natural Resources
Strategy, and it may be one of the very few good things (sadly) that stemmed
from our work. But as we know, Crown land is a very small portion of the
province. Private lands are where the atrocities are presently occurring,
and there is an increasing focus on how to convince private land holders to
relinquish their wood.
Foresters have been ordered to go and find suitable private lands for "full
tree" harvesting for some companies. The criteria are deplorably low and
devastating on the ecology of the land. Search for lands that are at least
50 % treed (species not important, but hardwood is best for most operations)
that are 4 inches in diameter (DBH) or greater. (Teeny, tiny trees, in
other words.)
Our Nova Scotia forests are being cut long before maturity and long before
they are allowed to recover and grow to the next successional stage.
"Stands" of grey/wire birch (barely meet the criteria of a "stand") are
being mowed down; this little tree which generally indicates past abuses
wherever it grows by its very nature is never allowed to 'heal the land' or
restore soil, as is part of its natural ecological role. The flattening of
such stands resets the land to the same early successional stage. Other
stand types are also being cut using the same criteria. Yellow birch, sugar
maple, no matter-all sent through the chipper. It doesn't matter if it's
green or brown biomass. There are no laws for private. I sometimes lie
awake at night during springtime and wonder how many bird nests and young
are being sent through the chipper while we sleep (operations go all night
and day, no matter the season in the mad dash for the last pitiful grab).
The tops of some of the softwoods, if present in the stand during a full
tree chipping operation, may be taken back out to the site and scattered
around. The goal is not environmental so much as to please the buyer who
wants mainly hardwood chips for industrial pellets overseas. And other wood,
of course is going to the Port Hawkesbury burner. Biomass burners are
starting to pop up here and there elsewhere in NS, too. (We no longer grow
trees to saw log size, and no new saw log mills have been started up for
ages.)
Companies such as Reeves out of New Ross puts most of their cut through the
chipper. Chips are going to Sheet Harbour and from there I am not certain
to where. I know that several years ago, some operations were quietly
shipping wood chips across the Atlantic to biomass burners in Europe so they
could state they were generating 'green energy'. It would be laughable if
it were not so sad.
I am happy to see this topic being focussed upon by the naturalist
community, and I am grateful to Jamie Simpson's research into biomass. This
is a very important subject, and one that our current politicians would not
disagree with. More that I would like to share with folks on that later,
but there is another item or two that I would like to address before bed-
About thinning: What I've been reading in this thread is an old school,
'agronomist' perspective still widely taught in forestry, and a strongly
held mantra with foresters, but one not generally adopted by
biologists/ecologists/naturalists who are taught to think more broadly on
the incredible complexities of forest ecology. Thinning trees is done
mostly to speed up growth and yields. The objective to cut down trees
sooner. There are stacks of research papers on this, but some of the more
recent ones question the whole practice of thinning and its economic
practicality. Thinning is also highly detrimental to forest songbirds, and
many folks will admit that they knowingly destroy countless nests while
thinning during springtime. Nonetheless, I hear all sorts of justifications
for the practice, but the truth is that nature does just fine on her own,
and we should learn to wait and be patient. She'll grow the best trees. (I
believe this was Mary's well-stated point of view also.) I've got at least
one research paper that concluded that thinning a spruce stand simply acted
as a vector for fungal infection through nearly the entire stand. (I can
reference it, but no time to find it now.) Natural forests will self-thin
in their own time, deciding on their own which is the strongest individual
genetic stock to survive in each microhabitat situation, and they don't need
help from us. However, the forester knocking on your door and wanting to
cut your wood will spin a different story, often alarmist about the great
need to thin, or simply (usually) to cut down all the trees in your woodlot
as a great favour to you before disaster strikes ("the sky is falling"
analogy).
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