Response letter to June 22/08 Winnipeg Free Press article entitled “When cutting down forest is the right thing to do”

Defining the Park Logging Discussion

This letter is in response to the Sunday, June 22 article entitled "When cutting down forests is the right thing to do". I want to briefly address the concept of a healthy forest in a park.

First, it is good to see the article stresses the importance of logging as a source of employment in rural areas. Logging by its very nature (harvesting a renewable product--trees) can be an environmentally friendly industry, if it is properly managed.

In the article, however, Grant Kurian brings up several questionable points that are often forwarded by logging proponents. The first myth-leading statement infers that if the park was logged there would be less fire hazard. This is followed by a comment that mature trees blew down, and those trees should have been harvested instead of being allowed to get so weak as to blow down. An outright falsehood is perpetuated with a comment saying harvesting mature trees is better for the forest, and replaces the natural management tool that has rejuvenated this forest for thousands of years--fire. Finally the myths wrap up with comments stating fire isn't appropriate for the park any more.

Attempts to suppress fire, which we've been trying to do for 60 years, have failed. The province of Ontario published a 160-page report in 2006 about fire and parks, called Natural fire regimes in Ontario. The following are the second and third statements in the introduction:
"Long term fire suppression…has negatively impacted ecosystem health by causing shifts in species composition, accumulations of biomass, insect infestations, poor regeneration, and degradation of wildlife habitat. Fire suppression has also caused significant accumulations of flammable fuels, which in turn, threaten the surrounding landscape."
What many scientists—and more enlightened governments than Manitoba's—know is that fire suppression does not work and causes more harm than good.

Manitoba's naturally occurring forests have a very short disturbance regime of about 100 years. The natural disturbances that affected forests in Manitoba before development were fire, insect infestation, and blow-downs. Roughly every one hundred years, all forests in Manitoba would suffer the effects of the above-mentioned natural disturbances.
The blow-down that occurred in Whiteshell was part of a natural process that this forested areas is capable of dealing with on its own.

Logging is not interchangeable with fire as a forest management tool. Fires help rejuvenate the nutrients in the soil through a chemical process, allowing for healthy forest regeneration. Logging bankrupts the soil of nutrients through a mechanical process (think logging trucks hauling wood—nutrients—out of a forest) and leads to a weaker re-growth of trees. We are losing biological diversity and weakening our forest every time we log.

Mr. Redekop rightly pointed out in this article that prescribed burning is a management process that is used elsewhere in Manitoba with success.

It is important to stress that loggers are not the bad guys. Logging, as stated earlier, is a sustainable industry based upon a renewable resource. But all Manitobans need to realize that after we log an area, we have lost that primary forest for generations.

We can easily define the discussion of logging and parks by realizing there are two types of forests in Manitoba: managed tree plantations and primary natural forests. A primary natural forest (referred to as old-growth in regions where forests get old) is a complex interrelated web of life that has not been altered, or has been given sufficient time to recover from unnatural disturbance such as logging. Managed tree plantations are every other forest that is disturbed in some way.
Soil nutrient testing in northwestern Ontario's forests has shown that it can take more than 100 years after logging for a forest to have sufficient nutrients available for healthy tree growth. This means that in the first 100 years the trees are stunted to some extent, and a primary forest that is logged will not be a primary forest again for more than a century, or until the second generation of trees re-grows after logging. Anyone who works with wood knows that second-growth timber re-grown after logging is of inferior quality to primary forests.

What we should have in Manitoba is a mix of both primary forests that preserve biodiversity—natural areas not disturbed by industrial activity—and managed tree plantations where loggers can operate sustainable businesses based upon the regeneration ability of that forest. Right now Manitoba has 8.6% of its land mass protected from industrial activity, and not all of that is forest. Recently 1,500 scientists from around the world, including leading researchers in Manitoba, signed a letter asking that at least 50% of the boreal forest be protected for the greater good of the planet. What Manitoba needs is large sections of existing primary forests to be off-limits to industrial activity. We can start by protecting our cherished provincial parks. If we are to maintain healthy, natural wild areas we must have a transformation in the Manitoba Conservation mindset, a shift away from industrial logging as a management tool for parks.

Eric Reder
Wilderness Commmittee Campaign Director

The newspaper article can be viewed by clicking here.