Macphail Woods Articles
Guest Opinion in Guardian, 9 October 1997

Guest Opinion in Guardian, 9 October 1997 by Ruth Richman

When the Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship toured the Island last year to hear the opinions of Islanders on their Interim Report I presented my ideas on several areas of interest. Now that their final report is out I would like to comment on it. First I would like to commend the group for their use of the consensus process to create their list of recommendations. Consensus is time consuming because it does not use coercion or threats to get people to change their opinions and it does not fall back on majority rule for a quick answer. Instead everyone learns and everyone teaches, empathy is needed as are good ears and a patient tongue. An opinion cannot be swayed by a "just because I said so" but, with logic, example and an open mind, strong opinions can be changed. The members of the Round Table absorbed hours of information, spent weeks discussing it, published their recommendations in the report Cultivating Island Solutions and now it is up to us to comment on them with letters and phone calls to our local politicians and premier.

The Round Table's report doesn't give me everything I wanted, in some areas they are softer than desired and in some areas they echo my sentiments. They are far more comprehensive than my fields of knowledge. There is not enough space here to itemize all the points but in my mind the most important are:

1. Get livestock out of the Island's watercourses. The Round Table recommends legislation to make it illegal for livestock to have access to watercourses. Financial incentives have been available for years to help farmers supply water for animals away from stream beds. I hope that the legislation is passed and financial assistance remains in place for one more year. Many community watershed groups have offered help to farmers in the form of grants, free labour and support. There is no excuse for this practice to continue.

2. The dangers of common household chemicals. Over the years I have given presentations to the Pesticide Advisory Council and written letters about the dangers of no-pest strips, house plant sprays and other commonly used, easily purchased and incorrectly dumped dangerous chemicals. The Round Table recommends an increase in education on the topic and for government to provide for their proper disposal. Education's a great thing but why are these dangerous chemicals even available for us to pollute ourselves, pets, neighbours and environment? Please! Stop selling them, stop buying them, convince companies to stop producing them and help us get rid of what we have in our cupboards.

3. The establishment of mandatory buffer zones on waterways (10 metres on intermittent springs and streams and 20 to 30 metres on all others, measured on the horizontal). I applaud this recommendation. It is something I have hoped and worked for over the years when I was coordinator of the Boughton River Watershed Enhancement Project, as a power saw operator working on private land and as a landowner with land on a freshwater river and a salt-water bay. I would like these buffer zones to be treed. Any existing canopy on the sites can be improved with a mix of appropriate long-lived species such as red oak, sugar maple, yellow birch, white pine and eastern hemlock. The biodiversity of the buffers can be improved with the addition of woodland shrubs. The buffers then become a seed source for future generations of trees and shrubs, a source of food and habitat for wildlife and will help maintain cool water temperatures and clear water in waterways for marine life. I do not agree with the Forest Industry Association's idea of harvesting trees within the buffer. The trees that would be harvested are just the ones that should be left to provide seeds for healthy trees in the future, food and habitat for wildlife, and to help the buffer maintain stability in wind. Harvesting within the buffer will open the site to windblow, erosion from yarding the logs, and will degrade the quality of the buffer.

4. Reducing pesticide use. I agree with the Round Table's multi-layer approach that what we need is a pesticide reduction strategy which includes Integrated Pest Management; the establishment of a new position of crop protection specialist to be filled by a person with a background in the area of bio-intensive integrated pest management; the enforcement of the existing Pesticides Control Act; that the Agriculture Branch enforce pesticide use standards as they are listed on federally approved pesticide labels, even if they are stricter than existing provincial law; that farm organizations adopt a zero-tolerance policy concerning pesticide drift; and that the education of farmers, farm workers, and users of household and garden pesticides be increased. I would like to see a long-range goal of zero use of harmful pesticides by the year 2008 with short term goals including the establishment of a demonstration organic farm, and a farm re-education program. Farmers cannot be expected to reduce or eliminate pesticides without our help and support.

5. Seeking better forest management. There are eight recommendations in the Forest Resource section. I agree with all of the recommendations but feel that some are loose and a bit soft on an industry that uses destructive instead of a constructive approach to a resource. I agree with the recommendation to amend the Private Land Management Program to include incentives for ecologically based forest practices such as patch cuts in softwood stands, treatments promoting uneven-aged stands, and underplanting in mixed wood stands. I also applaud the recommendation to remove incentives for single species plantations, slash burning, and plantations of non-native species. I would rather see plantations containing a mix of hardwood and softwood species rather that two softwood species (which is how I see the recommendation being interpreted). I believe that the forest industry has had enough time for their rampage in the Island's forests. The Round Table recommends a March 31, 1998 deadline for the industry and government to finish negotiating a system of softwood harvesting controls and adequate reforestation. It's not just softwood stands that are being felled, and need protection. Hardwood and mixed wood stands must be included in any protection plans. Personally, I would like to see the industry stopped dead until negotiations are completed. I believe that action would promote faster and better decisions for the future.

6. To help increase biodiversity I agree with the recommendations that government assist community and watershed groups and that the government retain crown land in threatened watersheds. (Or perhaps deed threatened areas to a conservatory group such as the Island Nature Trust). I would prefer that private landowners be able to keep land within threatened areas if they are willing to receive help and support by the Island Nature Trust or some such group. The government does not have an untarnished history in their management of crown land and may not be the best landowner of fragile ecosystems.

7. The proper management of crown land. I agree with all of the recommendations for designated Provincial Forests. Many of these echo my sentiments, including that the primary goal of management plans be to increase biodiversity. I do wonder at the inclusion of space being given for the experimental planting of exotic species. I wonder what those might be?

Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship

The report of the Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship was released to the public on September 3, 1997. Web development and maintenance by Chris Martin.