The Rural Voice, 1992-09, Page 14011111//,,
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10 THE RURAL VOICE
Adrian Vos
Farmers, government, and trees
anyone else) from cutting trees, even
on his own property unless he had a
permit from the local municipality.
For those of us who live "in the
sticks" as seen from Toronto, that
would be fine as our townships can
be expected to be reasonable and let
us cut our firewood without red tape.
But in larger municipalities, like the
regions, the shots are called by urban
people who may, like the provincial
government, be run by fanatical
environmentalists who don't want a
single tree to be cut because there
would be less oxygen to go around.
Anyone who reads city papers
knows of the demonstrations when a
city crew, or even an owner of private
property, comes with the chain saw to
cut a tree. These people are willing
to spend millions of extra tax dollars
to divert a road around one tree in
order to save it. This could also
easily happen in the rural areas if
county restructuring takes place and
directions come more from county
government in our larger towns than
from the largely disappearing
townships.
My next door neighbour, together
with his wife, has planted an estima-
ted 85,000 trees during his lifetime,
most of them by hand. If this tree
cutting law goes through he has to get
a permit to cut firewood from these
trees for the winter. Does the new
minister really think my neighbour
will destroy this resource? What
makes her think that woodlot owners
are irresponsible citizens? With
education the ministry will get better
results than with draconian laws.
Let them take a look at our wet-
lands instead. Too much wetland has
been drained and our water supply
has suffered as a consequence. But
that was done before we knew about
the effects of this draining. If society
deems it necessary for the common
good that a land owner cannot drain a
wetland to create the crop land need-
ed for his livelihood, or cut trees for
his wood stove, society should
reimburse that land owner so he
won't suffer on behalf of all society.°
Adrian Vos, from Huron County has
contributed to The Rural Voice since
its inception in 1975. He is a writer
and raises exotic birds on the farm
where he raised pigs for many years.
Trees, Tike all plants, make it pos-
sible for animals, including man, to
live on this earth. They absorb carb-
on dioxide, which may have a green-
house effect, and emit oxygen, with-
out which we
couldn't exist.
The more trees
there are the
more of this
exchange of
carbon dioxide
for oxygen takes
place.
It is therefore
not surprising
that environ-
mentalists have
put much empha-
sis on the protec-
tion of trees and
the planting of
new ones. We
should all support such efforts where
reasonable. I see one slight problem
with our present planting policies and
this is the preponderance of commer-
cial conifer planting. Undisturbed by
men until Europeans came to North
America, the majority of tree species
in Ontario were deciduous ones —
maple, beech, walnut, and the like.
The government's planting program
is almost completely commercial
white pine, with some minor excep-
tions.
Our provincial government is very
environmentally conscious. This is a
good thing, but, like all good things,
when pursued too far it may hurt
more than it cures. A few months
ago an over -zealous law or regulation
was passed that would not allow a
farmer to build a barn with lumber
from his own woodlot unless it was
graded by a government inspector.
You know, and I know, that this
would be an unending and costly ser-
ies of disagreements between inspect-
ors and farmers and that farmers
would be on the losing end of any
argument. In the end, because of the
outcry, especially in Eastern Ontario,
this regulation was watered down to
allow local municipalities to do this
inspecting, if they wanted to.
The next issue also concerns trees.
Not yet on the law books, but as a
discussion paper, the Ontario Trees
Act would prevent a farmer (or