Grant Will Help Small Forest Owners Fight Climate Change
HALIFAX — It’s easy to picture the forestry industry as being just a few large companies harvesting hectares upon hectares of trees. But, in the Maritimes, 40 percent of the forests are owned by individuals, who are also known as family forest owners.
These 80,000 owners across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and P.E.I. use the forest in a diverse number of ways to make a living. Some own small lumber mills, others may sell firewood for extra income, or just use their land for hunting and fishing.
Because these operations are small, they are often overlooked for funding and training to combat climate change. But now, an Atlantic non-profit, Community Forests International, has received a $1-million grant from TD Bank to help these forest owners make the transition.
The funding will not go towards replacing old, gas-guzzling equipment. Instead, it will be used for training and advocacy so the forest can do its best to thrive, and do one of its most important jobs: store carbon for the planet.
The $1 million will be used to reach 14,000 landowners in the hopes of protecting 550,000 acres of forest.
“There’s no capital costs at all,” Daimen Hardie, the executive director at Community Forests International, told Huddle. “It’s a lot of training. And it’s a lot of advocacy and storytelling that needs to happen to so that people know that there are these huge opportunities to work in forests in ways that actually help slow down the climate crisis.”
A big part of the advocacy will be used to attract more philanthropy to Atlantic Canada. Hardie says only 3 percent of all environmental philanthropy dollars in Canada are aimed at the Atlantic region.
Although protecting the forest is incredibly important, Hardie is also aware that protection must balance people’s financial needs. Training landowners to use new methods, with climate change front of mind, will be key.
“We have these urgent environmental crises that are getting harder and harder for us to reverse that we need to take action on. At the same time, people are struggling just to deal with their day-to-day cost of living,” says Hardie.
“I feel like it’s so important right now, as we take action on climate that we do it in a way where people can continue to have good jobs and provide for their families while making these transitions. So that’s the whole idea; a just transition.”
One of the ways landowners can build their forest’s health is by harvesting smartly. Instead of clear-cutting an area and taking all the trees, a selective approach could help the forest adjust to the changing climate. There will even be training on how to measure the amount of carbon stored in the forest.
Hardie explains that extensive harvesting of the Wabanaki forest since colonial times has changed the makeup of the trees. There is a lot of softwood now, which is great for certain industries, but those trees are not expected to fare well with temperatures warming and they don’t live as long as hardwood. That’s why it’s important to preserve the hardwood trees, like red oak and red maple, which will be more resilient and help store carbon.
“Less than 1 percent of the Wabanaki forest, here on the East Coast, is now in a pre-colonial state. There’s very little of this endangered forest left in its full potential, where you got like old-growth characteristics, because there’s been such intensive harvesting for the past few hundred years.”
“We have a lot of forests it’s been clear cut several times over. And the mix that means that the mix of tree species on the landscape now is quite different and it’s more dominated by things like balsam fir, and white spruce.”
A lot of people may expect that tree-planting may be a big part of the plan. But that is not the case, even though Hardie doesn’t entirely discount the importance of it. But if a forest is allowed to thrive it doesn’t need our help to put trees in the ground.
“A healthy forest replants itself,” as Hardie put it best.
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].