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The Rural Voice, 2002-10, Page 30Spare the axe. Reap the rewards Tree bylaws designed to protect woodlots may actually encourage premature harvesting and cost landowners money — not to mention damaging health forests Story and photo by Keith Roulston Tree bylaws that are designed to create healthy woodlots may actually be having the opposite` effect because landowners and loggers are cutting all trees above the minimum legal limit, a recent study by the Maitland Valley Watershed Partnership has found. Under the study funded by Human Resources Develop- ment Canada. the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority, the Forest Health Project's study team evaluated 101 sites on 78 properties in the area covered by the watersheds of the Maitland and Nine Mile rivers ranging from Lake Huron inland. They graded the sites from poor to excellent based on a number of criteria. Only one site rated excellent. Sixty per cent rated only fair or poor. Richard Keeso of Keeso and Sons Lumber in Listowel said he was disappointed with the results. A member of the study team, Keeso, said he was surprised to see the Targe percentage of woodlots that fell into the fair and poor categories. "I think we're far behind on good forest practices," he said. Jane Bowles, forest ecologist with the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Western Ontario said the findings confirmed her "gut feeling that a lot of forests out there are not as healthy as they should be." The study used many factors to judge the amount of damage to the forest from being relatively undisturbed by humans for excellent, to being severely disturbed' for poor. Such things as invasion of non-native plant species like garlic mustard and common buckthorn were also taken into • account in making the assessments. But the most disturbing factor for most of the study team was the lack of larger and older trees that are necessary to make a woodlot grow at its optimum rate. Only 27 sites had basal areas at or above 15 square meters per hectare which is the level at which optimal tree growth is found, according to research published by the Ontario A study of woodlots in the Maitland River watershed found they were not as healthy as they should be. 26 THE RURAL VOICE Ministry of Natural Resource in 2000. The basal area is calculated by measuring the diameter of all trees at breast height. "These results suggest that a large proportion of woodlots in the watershed have been cut to the legal diameter limit and contain few larger trees," the study says. "Stands that have been cut to the diameter limit tend to be overstocked with smaller diameter stems, have high mortality and have poor lumber quality." And that, says. Bowles, is going to cost the landowners money. If too many large trees are taken out of a woodlot at the same time the canopy above is opened up allowing more light to the forest floor and stimulating more competition. Smaller trees will be encouraged but there will be so many trees they'll be overcrowded. Eventually a selective cut might help restore some balance but in the meantime the trees will grow shorter and not as well. When trees have to stretch up for the light, as they do when they're growing among mature trees, they'Il grow taller and straighter, ideal for logs. If they get too much Tight, they'll develop more branches and the logs will be less valuable. A s well, Bowles points out, the study team found a higher percentage of Tess valuable timber like ash growing in the woodlots than expected. Ash is an early transition species that ddesn't tolerate shade. The open canopy of the woodlots with too few mature trees has meant there's enough light for ash to thrive. What's more, says Rick Steele of the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority, those who have cut their woodlots to the legal limit are going to have to wait much longer before they can harvest another cut. Over the long term, says Steele, a member of the study team, a landowner will make more money by taking less money in the short term and leaving enough larger trees in place to produce optimal growth. Those trees left that are just above the minimum diameter will be bigger for the next cut.