[NatureNS] re Red Herring & Forestry

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2016 10:07:40 -0400 (AST)
From: "rita.paul@ns.sympatico.ca" <rita.paul@ns.sympatico.ca>
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&gt; read that are dying all at once are white spruce (hit har
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   One lesson we get taught&#160;over and over&#160;again&#160;Donna is
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   manufacturing electricity&#160;is not an environmental friendly activity.
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   We went away from coal because of the effect on the environment
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   and now we put up steel windmills which is made with coal.
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   I saw an estimate where there are 2500 coal fueled power&#160;plants from the
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   drawing board to start of production in the world. And then look at the Made in China
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   stickers on whatever in the stores. And we don&#39;t burn coal!
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   Each change is hyped as wonderful only to discover latter that is not
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   the case. Look at the tidal plant at Annapolis - was it worth eliminating
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   one of the few spawning areas of the Striped Bass for the electricity it produces?
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   Learn&#160; a bit from this so the next scheme will have more questions.
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   Enjoy the January thaw - at least it cut s down on fuel!
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  <div>
   Paul
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   &#160;
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   <br/>&#62; On January 10, 2016 at 10:43 PM Donna Crossland &#60;dcrossland@eastlink.ca&#62; wrote:
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; There is no whole-tree harvesting allowed on Crown lands. Bob Bancroft and
   <br/>&#62; I suggested this be enacted back in 2010 during the Natural Resources
   <br/>&#62; Strategy, and it may be one of the very few good things (sadly) that stemmed
   <br/>&#62; from our work. But as we know, Crown land is a very small portion of the
   <br/>&#62; province. Private lands are where the atrocities are presently occurring,
   <br/>&#62; and there is an increasing focus on how to convince private land holders to
   <br/>&#62; relinquish their wood. 
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; Foresters have been ordered to go and find suitable private lands for &#34;full
   <br/>&#62; tree&#34; harvesting for some companies. The criteria are deplorably low and
   <br/>&#62; devastating on the ecology of the land. Search for lands that are at least
   <br/>&#62; 50 % treed (species not important, but hardwood is best for most operations)
   <br/>&#62; that are 4 inches in diameter (DBH) or greater. (Teeny, tiny trees, in
   <br/>&#62; other words.)
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; Our Nova Scotia forests are being cut long before maturity and long before
   <br/>&#62; they are allowed to recover and grow to the next successional stage.
   <br/>&#62; &#34;Stands&#34; of grey/wire birch (barely meet the criteria of a &#34;stand&#34;) are
   <br/>&#62; being mowed down; this little tree which generally indicates past abuses
   <br/>&#62; wherever it grows by its very nature is never allowed to &#39;heal the land&#39; or
   <br/>&#62; restore soil, as is part of its natural ecological role. The flattening of
   <br/>&#62; such stands resets the land to the same early successional stage. Other
   <br/>&#62; stand types are also being cut using the same criteria. Yellow birch, sugar
   <br/>&#62; maple, no matter-all sent through the chipper. It doesn&#39;t matter if it&#39;s
   <br/>&#62; green or brown biomass. There are no laws for private. I sometimes lie
   <br/>&#62; awake at night during springtime and wonder how many bird nests and young
   <br/>&#62; are being sent through the chipper while we sleep (operations go all night
   <br/>&#62; and day, no matter the season in the mad dash for the last pitiful grab). 
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; The tops of some of the softwoods, if present in the stand during a full
   <br/>&#62; tree chipping operation, may be taken back out to the site and scattered
   <br/>&#62; around. The goal is not environmental so much as to please the buyer who
   <br/>&#62; wants mainly hardwood chips for industrial pellets overseas. And other wood,
   <br/>&#62; of course is going to the Port Hawkesbury burner. Biomass burners are
   <br/>&#62; starting to pop up here and there elsewhere in NS, too. (We no longer grow
   <br/>&#62; trees to saw log size, and no new saw log mills have been started up for
   <br/>&#62; ages.)
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; Companies such as Reeves out of New Ross puts most of their cut through the
   <br/>&#62; chipper. Chips are going to Sheet Harbour and from there I am not certain
   <br/>&#62; to where. I know that several years ago, some operations were quietly
   <br/>&#62; shipping wood chips across the Atlantic to biomass burners in Europe so they
   <br/>&#62; could state they were generating &#39;green energy&#39;. It would be laughable if
   <br/>&#62; it were not so sad. 
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; I am happy to see this topic being focussed upon by the naturalist
   <br/>&#62; community, and I am grateful to Jamie Simpson&#39;s research into biomass. This
   <br/>&#62; is a very important subject, and one that our current politicians would not
   <br/>&#62; disagree with. More that I would like to share with folks on that later,
   <br/>&#62; but there is another item or two that I would like to address before bed- 
   <br/>&#62; 
   <br/>&#62; About thinning: What I&#39;ve been reading in this thread is an old school,
   <br/>&#62; &#39;agronomist&#39; perspective still widely taught in forestry, and a strongly
   <br/>&#62; held mantra with foresters, but one not generally adopted by
   <br/>&#62; biologists/ecologists/naturalists who are taught to think more broadly on
   <br/>&#62; the incredible complexities of forest ecology. Thinning trees is done
   <br/>&#62; mostly to speed up growth and yields. The objective to cut down trees
   <br/>&#62; sooner. There are stacks of research papers