Article written by Gary Schneider

“New Forestry is an attempt to define forest management with timber production as a by-product of its primary function: sustaining biological diversity and maintaining long-term ecosystem health.” Dr. Ken Lertzman, Forest Ecologist, Simon Fraser University

For many years now, all my forest talks at Macphail Woods, and the ecological forestry courses at UPEI and Acadia, start with this quote. I use it to remind everyone that we’ve been looking at forests through the wrong lens. We tend to ask ourselves “how much value can we get from that forest – everything from lumber to wood chips -without seeing the real values that forests provide. If we view forests through the lens of product value alone, we are bound to keep repeating our mistakes.

Dr. Lertzman correctly points out that healthy forests bring so many benefits - from clean air and water, carbon storage, important wildlife habitat, and opportunities to improve our physical and mental health. Viewed through this lens, everything you can harvest from that forest – from lumber to mushrooms to biomass – should only be extracted if it doesn’t degrade the forest. The problem is we can’t actually quantify the worth of carbon storage, clean air and water, and mental health. But we are starting to understand just how much value they have, how they substantially contribute to our economic and social well being.

Prince Edward Island is in a unique situation to develop a science-based ecological forest policy. We do not have a large industry here, and most of that industry is involved in clearcutting and tree planting. Unlike New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, we don’t feel a huge amount of pressure from the Irvings and the other pulp and lumber companies of this region. They wouldn’t appreciate progressive policy focused on improving and maintaining the health of our Wabanaki-Acadian forest. But they also wouldn’t likely put a lot of resources into opposing such a policy – they have too much going on in their own provinces that are keeping them occupied.

Post-tropical storm Fiona, an awakening among Island forest owners, and the recent Prince Edward Island Forestry Commission have all nudged us towards a truly inspiring forest policy. The Forestry Commission spent over a year holding public meetings, visiting sites, and deliberating about where forestry in the province should be headed. The report was finished in October and presented to the Minister. Unfortunately, it still hasn’t gone to the legislature, so we have no real idea whether the recommendations will be accepted. The report lays out a long list of recommendations that are urgently needed and I hope that you have a chance to see them soon. This is a document that has already spent too long on a shelf.

In the meantime, we should continue to move forward for the sake of our forests. I asked Macphail Woods Director Eric Edward about where we should be headed. With his usual eloquence, Eric stated: “A healthy forest is getting older, growing volume, has or is establishing a natural succession and therefore has a healthy shrub layer, understory, and multi-aged canopy, has dead standing trees and significant course woody debris (CWD), pit and mound topography and a diversity of species of both flora and fauna. And these are just the simplest indicators of health. Excellence accepts that the ultimate complexity of a forest is beyond our individual expertise – but not the indicators.”

Prince Edward Island has an incredible opportunity to be a leader in the fields of forest stewardship and restoration. In my next post, I’ll look at some key components of an ecological forest policy.