Province Announces Reforestation Effort

Thursday, July 05, 2007 05:02 PM

And so it begins.

The Minstry of Forests and Range has announced the Province will plant more than 3 million seedlings next summer in the Williams Lake and Quesnel areas. This is part of the mountain pine beetle epidemic reforestation efforts.

Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman says the focus will be to restore ecosystems that have been impacted by the beetle "By planting trees in locations that are not being commercially harvested, we are addressing environmental needs, like water flow and animal habitat, and growing a future timber supply.” This past spring, the run off from Baker Creek was said to be extremely high because there were no trees to absorb any of the moisture.

Next summer, seedlings will be planted in about 4,000 hectares in the Williams Lake and Quesnel timber supply areas. Preparation of planting sites, including danger tree falling, will occur this summer. As well, another 8,000 hectares of beetle-attacked stands will be surveyed this year to prepare for future planting.

“This is just the beginning of our reforestation efforts in the Cariboo,” said Coleman. “We’ve done the mapping and the planning, and ordered the seedlings. Now we are ready to get going on the ground.”

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Thursday, July 05, 2007 05:02 PM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: Runner46 on July 5 2007 7:35 PM

I can see the cash coming into willys puddle in the way of tree planters already.

Posted by: owl on July 6 2007 4:49 AM

They never used to announce this sort of thing. It looks like nothing extraordinary to me.

Just to confirm numbers for those on here, here is one page from a tree planter working out of the PG area.

http://www.replant.ca/diaries.html

The companies the author worked for in each of the years planted the following number of trees:

� 2006 � 5.3 million trees
� 2005 � 6.3 million
� 2004 � 4.6 million
� 2003 � 5.1 million
� 2002 � 4.1 million
� 2001 � 4.2 million

Follow the money:
� Dollars for the administrative headquarters personnel and office facilities � can be anywhere since the companies bid province-wide and outside of the province.
� Vehicle and other equipment rental � typically from central and larger urban areas
� Trees � from nurseries located in key areas around the province
� Local accommodation and meals � total if working out of motels, otherwise grocery stores and camp equipment rental
� The largest component to planter salaries which is typically saved and spent elsewhere after the spring and summer planting season is over.

To me, this does not look like an extraordinary amount of money being spent quite yet. There should be more spent than normal. In addition, they are looking at �enhanced� silviculture down the road which could add dollars in operations where it typically has not been spent in the past.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on July 6 2007 8:18 AM

I guess now we should all bow down to Campbell and his clan in gratitude for this great announcement.
Never miss an opportunity to pat yourself on the back!
So how is this a going to help over the short term?
Do they not know how long it takes to grow a tree to a marketable stage?
Reforestation is needed, but so is leadership and innovative ideas and solutions by all concerned!
That is the missing link.
And money of course!