by:
Ed Baily
June 1982
One of the most important issues facing our forest industry is a shortage of timber- a shortage resulting from a lack of money spent on forest management in the past and the large losses resulting from budworm and other insect and disease attacks. Our studies show that properly managed, our forests could yield approximately 60 cords of wood per acre. But we have over a million acres of "silvic junk" (forest stands that are over 60 years old with only 6-8 cords per acre) that testify to the lack of funds spent on management in the past. Moreover, the recent budworm attack has caused the loss of approximately 9 = million cords of softwood on Cape Breton alone. To put this loss in perspective, nine million cords represents approximately 50%of the total softwood volume on Cape Breton Island (excluding the park), 1/10 of the total softwood volume in Nova Scotia or 14 years of wood supply to Nova Scotia Forest Industries mill at Port Hawkesbury.
The question of future softwood supply cannot be accurately determined until the budworm has run its course and the Department has made another inventory of Cape Breton's forests. Although the forecast for budworm activity is low for 1982, it is not certain that the populations will remain low in the future. Much of the remaining mature softwood forests have been severely defoliated by the budworm.
These present and projected losses have resulted in a crisis for the forest industry in Nova Scotia, especially in eastern Nova Scotia. To overcome this softwood shortage government and industry elected to establish a large scale silviculture program designed to maintain present harvest levels, thereby, preventing wood shortages in the short run and increasing the size of the industry in the long run. Failure to continue the funding of these silviculture activities could ultimately result in the loss of 8,000 direct and indirect jobs and eliminate the possibility of creating a more diverse and ecologically desirable forest. The present silviculture program, which is considered a minimum program, includes 10,000 acres of spacing in immature stands, 6,000 acres of thinning, 15,000 acres of planting and site preparation, 7,000 acres of salvage and 4,000 acres of other treatments each year. In addition to maintaining present harvest levels, this silviculture program is designed to gradually increase the quality of the forest and its diversity of species and age classes, thereby, decreasing the susceptibility of the forest to future attacks by insects and diseases. It must be emphasized that these expenditures on silviculture will yield the desired results only if there is an adequate protection program.
Why is Protection Needed?
This summer, approximately 15,000 acres of cutover will be artificially reforested and by the mid eighties, it is estimated that 23,000 acres or 1/3 of the softwood cutovers will be planted annually. The remaining cutovers will regenerate naturally and do not require planting. Surveys show that a large percentage of the plantations are seriously affected by various species of competing vegetation including raspberries, heath vegetation, pin cherry, alders, wire birch, red maple, poplar and/or white birch. Experts from across the world agree that the application of approved and environmentally safe herbicides is the only reasonable way to control this competing vegetation. With proper protection, these plantations will yield 150 to 200% more wood than the natural unmanaged forest. Without protection, studies indicate that yields will be considerably reduced. Normally only 1 or possibly 2 applications of herbicides are required on any one acre in a 40 to 60 year period. The total volume of solution applied ranges from 2 to 10 gallon per acre.
The alternative to herbicides is non-chemical hand weeding. Hand weeding is extremely expensive. The cost of applying 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T from a helicopter is approximately $35/acre whereas the cost of hand weeding ranges from $50 to $300/acre with an average cost of $200 . Moreover, acceptable control of competitive vegetation is not possible with only one hand weeding treatment. Normally 2 to 4 treatments would b em required because of the suckering and sprouting properties of the species to be controlled, namely pin cherry, birch, maple, raspberries, etc. In addition, a substantial percentage of the planted seedlings are usually damaged and/or destroyed during the hand weed operation. Another major disadvantage is the increased health hazard associated with using chain saws or hand tools to cut down the competing vegetation. A USDA-EPA assessment team report stated that during 1.4 million man hours of aerial application of various types of herbicides to brush in Texas, one accident occurred in which a flagger lost the sight in one eye and was diagnosed as being caused by diesel oil. In Nova Scotia, water rather than diesel oil is used as the carrier. Alternately brush control on forest land in Oregon by chain saws resulted in 769 accidents per 100,000 man hours.
The managed and unmanaged forest will also require protection from insects and diseases on occasion. As already pointed out, forest management plans will stress the principal of diversity, thereby, creating a forest which is more complex in both species mix, structure and age class distribution. Moreover, the species to be planted will be chosen not only on the basis of their adaptability to site, but also on their resistance to the more dangerous pests. In spite of these measures, individual stands, within these forests, will occasionally require the use of selective insecticides to protect them. Small populations of insects (budworm, weevils, shoot moths, tussock moth, etc.) are always present, but periodically, under favourable conditions, will rapidly expand to high populations creating an extreme hazard for a few years. At best, failure to protect the managed forest during these years will result in a serious reduction in the growth and yield of such stands. at worst, lack of protection will result in the loss of valuable crop and a serious reduction in harvesting in future years.
Common Misconceptions about Forest Protection
- Agent Orange is Used in Forest Spraying Programs
- Agent orange was a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D which has not been produced since 1970. It was used as a defoliant in Vietnam and contained 100 to 1,000 times more dioxin than is presently contained in 2,4,5-T. Due to the higher rates and frequencies of application in Vietnam, the dioxen level actually applied was up to 30,000 times greater per acre than the level applied in Nova Scotia.
- 2,4,5-T is the Only Source of Dioxen in the Environment
- Recent reports indicate that dioxin originates from many different sources such as gasoline, cigarettes, diesel powered automobiles and trucks, charcoal grills, etc. In the past it was thought that dioxin occurred only as an impurity in the manufacture of such products as pesticides.
- Vast Areas of Forest Land are Being Sprayed with Herbicides
- Estimates of the annual area requiring herbicide treatment in forestry is less than 1/5 of 1% of the total land area in Nova Scotia. On any one acre of forest land, herbicide is applied only once or at most twice in a 40 to 60 year period. In 1980 there were 106,000 acres treated for forestry purposes with herbicide in Canada. For comparison purposes, 35,000,000 acres of wheat are treated annually in Canada. the quantity of herbicides used in forestry amounts to less that .01% of the total herbicides used in Canadian Agriculture.
- Herbicides are Destroying the Hardwood Resource
- This argument is unfounded for 2 main reasons:
- The largest percentage of sites sprayed to control competing vegetation were previously occupied by a softwood forest in which hardwoods made up less than 10% of the merchantable volume; and
- Recent natural regeneration studies indicate that a large percentage of the softwood cutovers are regenerating to hardwood and/or mixed wood stands. In other words there has been a substantial increase in the hardwood component of the forest. It now appears that even with the planting of approximately 1/3 of the cutovers with unsatisfactory regeneration and cleaning of 15% of the naturally regenerating cutovers, the component of hardwood species in our forest will gradually increase beyond its traditional 30%.
- The Reforestation Program will Result in a Monoculture Being Established in Nova Scotia.
- Over 70% of the softwood volume in eastern Nova Scotia is made up of only 2 species - namely balsam fir and white spruce. In Victoria and Inverness counties, balsam fir and white spruce compose almost 90% of the softwood volume. Moreover, most of this white spruce and fir is mature with less that 20% of the softwood forest under 40 years of age. By planting red spruce and black spruce, and various species of pine, the percentage of balsam fir and white spruce can be gradually decreased, thereby increasing the species diversity and reducing the risk to future attacks by insects and diseases. Because plantations and other silviculturally treated stands can be harvested 30 to 40 years sooner than natural unmanaged stands, the average age of the forest can be gradually reduced, thereby, making the future forest less susceptible to attack.
- The Forest Industry is Being Oversubsidized by Government
- The provincial and federal governments collect 3 billion dollars in taxes from Canada's forest sector each year. However, according to a recent federal government report, only 5 cents on every tax dollar collected is reinvested in renewing and improving the productivity of the country's forests.
- This argument is unfounded for 2 main reasons: