Environmentalists are up in arms over a plan by the Ontario government to allow vastly larger areas of clearcut logging
Copyright 2000 Southam Inc, The Ottawa Citizen
October 4, 2000
By Tom Blackwell
But the minister in charge insists the new rules are designed to actually make harvesting trees less disruptive to the animal life of the forests.
The proposed guidelines quietly released recently would raise the maximum allowable clearcut in certain areas to 10,000 hectares -- about 14,000 football fields -- from the current 260 hectares.
The change will help forestry companies cut trees more cheaply and efficiently, but could be disastrous to many species of animal, said Richard Brooks of the group Earthroots.
''It's a very serious issue,'' he said. ''We would see a significant loss of wildlife habitat. We would also see a loss of esthetic value. Nobody wants to be walking around in a clearcut that's the size of 14, 000 football fields.''
The draft guidelines for logging were prepared at the request last year of the province's environment minister, and were supposed to be designed so logging could mimic the natural destruction wrought by forest fires.
The old guidelines allowed clearcuts of up to 260 hectares, or more if the larger size could be ecologically justified.
The huge clearcuts permitted by the new guidelines should better accommodate some species that thrive in vast areas wiped out by fire, said Natural Resources Minister John Snobelen.
''Caribou, for instance, require a much larger cut area that emulates fire,'' he told reporters.
''Fire often takes out thousands and thousands of hectares and that's good for habitat, for instance for caribou. Moose, for example, require much smaller types of cutting patterns.''
And he stressed that the new rules will not allow logging companies to cut down any more trees than they do now.
Environmentalists acknowledge the rules contain some positive changes. By requiring clearcuts to be grouped close together, they would reduce the number of roads built through the wilderness, said Tim Gray of Wildlands League. And they require that more trees be left standing in clearcut areas, which matches the impact of a fire more closely, he said.
But the rules would allow 10,000-hectare clearcuts in ''inappropriate'' areas of the province's south, far from where caribou roam, said Mr. Gray.
Species like the pine marten, a member of the weasel family, that thrive in thick bush would not be able to persist in forests pockmarked by huge clearcuts, he said.
''The wildlife that lives there is not going to do very well.''
The Natural Resources Ministry is allowing the public to respond to the proposal until the end of November before making the guidelines final.