The philosopher and poet George Santayana once said, “The earth makes music for those who listen.” Now sit back and enjoy learning about some of the music Mac has heard during a lifetime of listening.
John Naysmith R.P.F. (Ret’d) is a Lakehead University Fellow and recipient of a Charles Bullard Fellowship from Harvard. In his five-decade-long career, he served as a company logging superintendent in northern Ontario; chief of the Water, Forest and Land Division, Yukon and NWT; founding chair of Ontario’s Forestry Futures Trust Committee; founding dean of Lakehead University’s Faculty of Forestry; and as Canada’s representative on the United Nations Advisory Committee on Forestry Education.
Introduction
The boreal forest is constantly changing, often dramatically. We like to picture the boreal forest as a stable, balanced system. It is anything but stable. Balanced? Yes, but only temporarily and in limited areas. It is resilient.
Over sixty years, progressing through bush worker, forestry student, practising forester, and retired independent thinker, I have seen forests that were “protected” within national parks become devastated by insects, moose, wind, and wildfire.1I have worked in and studied forests that over 110 years have been twice clear-cut harvested and are now mature again on private and public land. In all cases, the forest has returned; sometimes that forest is quite different from the original, and sometimes it is quite similar to the original, but never is it exactly the same as the original.
For decades I have monitored stands that were unaffected by dramatic depletion, such as that associated with clear-cut harvesting, only to discover that they had almost completely changed in tree and other plant species and wildlife habitat. I have become convinced that a naturally balanced boreal forest is a human concept that does not exist in nature. The boreal forest is always changing; the boreal forest is dynamic.
If we don’t soon collectively recognize and accept that reality, and stop making what I feel are irrational demands that we tie up or “protect” ever-increasing areas of forests from change or human management, we may be conditioning the boreal forest for future disaster.
My love of that forest compelled me to write the articles on which Dynamic Forestis based. Readers of the articles convinced me I should write this book. In it I discuss the dangers I see if we follow the demands of those who want us to change the boreal forest from its natural, even-aged structure to an unnatural, uneven-aged structure. I end with a plea that we put aside our selfish wants and work together for the good of the forest, its inhabitants, ourselves, and our descendants.
1
Canada Is a Forest Nation
Canada is a forest nation. Our forests benefit each and every one of us, regardless of whether we live in Whitecourt, Millertown, Gull Bay, or Toronto. Some of those benefits are obvious, but many are less obvious, especially if we live in larger cities far from the boreal forest. Those benefits are often thought of as separate and independent, but, like in the forest itself, every benefit is part of an interdependent whole.
The forest industry can’t be easily separated from the transportation, energy, mining, and tourism industries, because to variable degrees they are all dependent on each other for their success. The success of businesses within those industries in turn helps ensure the economic and social viability of our communities and the quality of life we have come to expect.
There are many other benefits that, because of the wealth provided by business, we can participate in or use. First to come to mind are the numerous everyday products that are on our store shelves: lumber and the scores of paper and pulp products, such as tissue, magazine, packaging, and wrapping papers. Then there is wood fibre in some of our clothing and even forest-derivedingredients in some of our toothpastes and medicines. We keep adding new products with advancing knowledge and technology. As I write this, I am looking around my office and all, or a part, of practically everything I see came from the forest. The wood in the framing, walls, and floors of my house, the paper on the wall, my book case and the books in it, the reports and files in my filing cabinets, even some of the ingredients in the paints on the walls and in my art supplies are made to some degree from forest products.
All of those products are dependent on trees, but trees are only part of the forest. Think of the other products of the land: the wild meat, fish, skins, berries, and mushrooms. These are all items that we extract from the forest, and they easily command a dollar value. However, there are other, less tangible benefits, including carbon storage, oxygen production, water regulation, climate buffering, aesthetics, relaxation, and spiritual enhancement. The boreal forest is home to billions of migratory and non-migratorybirds, mammals, insects, spiders, reptiles, amphibians, plants, and fungi. Time spent in the woods is beneficial to our mental and physical health. Yes, the boreal forest is a necessary part of our human habitat.
Of course, it is easier to quantify the economic importance of Canada’s forest to Canadians. Our forests and forest industry supported directly and indirectly 288,669 jobs in 2014 and when the industry was at a low point it paid $8.657 billion in wages during 2012. Total revenue from goods manufactured by the industry was $53.159 billion in 2012 and total exports from the sector were valued at $30.774 billion in 2014.1
Because of the immense importance of forests to Canada and the world, it is imperative that we sustain them and ensure their health. In order to do that, it is necessary to use proper forestry practices, which in many cases, particularly in Canada’s boreal forest, involves clear-cutharvesting. I acknowledge that probably the majority of Canadians believe that clear-cuttingthe forest is bad for the environment, but I intend to demonstrate in this book that if we are to live in, utilize, and sustain a healthy boreal forest, then clear-cutharvesting and even-agedstand management has to remain the predominant silvicultural system.
Some Comparative Statistics
Forests cover only 27 percent of the world’s four billion hectare land area. Because of human population increase and forest area shrinkage, the available forest per person has dropped from 0.8 hectares in 1990 to only 0.6 hectares in 2015.2I feel that if that ratio continues to deteriorate we are headed for serious trouble. It is becoming clear to me that we must control our birthrate, sacrifice some of our wants, and co-operateat sustaining our forests.
Canada has a total of roughly 347 million hectares of forested area,3 or approximately 9 percent of the world’s total, and 9.5 hectares of forest for every one of its citizens. That provides us with a wealth of opportunity compared to the opportunity available to residents of most other nations. It also places a huge responsibility on each of us to ensure our forests are well managed.
Canada stands out in many ways among forested nations. For instance, only 6.2 percent of the Canadian forest is privately owned, and that is predominantly held by industry. The provinces own 76.6 percent, the territories 12.9 percent, aboriginal 2.0 percent, and the federal government 1.6 percent.4The majority of forest harvesting in Canada is carried out by industry and their contractors through timber licences acquired from the provinces.
By comparison, in Finland, “individuals and families own some two-thirdsof the Finnish forests.”5“There are approximately 350,000 privately owned forests in Finland, making private, non-industrialforest owners central actors in the Finnish timber trade.”6There, for practical reasons and economy of scale, land owners sell standing timber to firms that do the harvesting.
No two nations in the world have the same legislation, forest policies, land ownership patterns, climate, forest soil, plant and fauna species, and disturbance patterns. Even within Canada there are differences in all of those across the nation, sometimes over relatively short distances.
I have discovered in my reading that there is a trend