Silviculture contractors in Ontario are feeling the impact of the forest industry downturn and looking to government to increase involvement in forest regeneration.
Forest companies who have sustainable forest licenses with the government make payments into the Forest Renewal Trust at an assessed rate on each cubic metre of wood harvested in the province. When it is time to regenerate the forest that has been harvested, the SFL holder can withdraw money from the Forest Renewal Trust to pay for this renewal work.
Mill closures and corporate bankruptcies have resulted in a reduced contribution to the Forest Renewal Trust Fund and many companies are favouring less expensive silviculture practices such as natural regeneration and aerial seeding. These developments have created a crisis in the silviculture sector as less money and less work is being made available.
Harold Lauzier runs NorOntario Contracting in Thunder Bay which specializes in mechanical site preparation. Lauzier says business has been slow this year; a trend he noticed developing long before the recent economic downturn.
"Business hasn’t been good. I just put a bid in on a job. I’m still waiting to see what will happen, I don’t know if the mill is going to stay open" Lauzier said.
"Silviculture sure has downsized in recent years, the ministry has got to start paying more attention. The trust fund isn’t there, there is just no money in it and that’s the ministry’s issue. The Ministry of Natural Resources is the one that should be policing things’ Lauzier said. "I have been in business since 1995 and not once have I seen ministry personnel come out to the bush to do an inspection, walk the cut-overs or chit chat. It’s like they don’t even exist."
The recent trend toward aerial seeding is one that Lauzier finds disturbing and he feels it will have repercussions for the industry in the future.
"You end up having 40,000 trees per hectare and in 20 years when you look at the plantation it’s just horrible" Lauzier said. "The trees are not growing straight, and it’s impossible to get saw logs out of it and you have all these crooked trees that are only good for pulp basically."
"If you go out there and you use Bräcke mechanical mounders and trenchers, which space everything properly you end up getting your 2,000 to 2,200 trees per hectare and once they are planted you walk away" Lauzier said. "The trees are spaced out properly and there is an abundance of wood there that will be ready for the mill in sixty years."
Apathy on the part of the government has allowed Ontario’s forest regeneration to fall behind that of other provinces, Lauzier insists.
"Silviculture has really gone downhill in Ontario. It’s horrible compared to Quebec and Alberta. We’re not really managing our forests very well any more. You can’t really blame it all on the mills; the ministry puts all the responsibility on them but when the mills are struggling it makes it difficult" Lauzier said. "So, it’s been reduced to just primitive scarification like we were doing thirty years ago. We are not a leading province when it comes to quality silviculture any more, it’s just to survive, just to get by."
Jack MacDonald of Heritage Reforestation in Dacre, near Ottawa, Ontario has seen fluctuations in their level of business in recent years.
"Last year our biggest sector was aerial spraying and mechanical site prep, we didn’t do too much planting, about 2 million trees. This year mechanical site prep has gone down significantly from about 2,000 hectares to around 100 hectares and our tree plant has gone to about 7 million" MacDonald said.
The reduction in mechanical site prep can be attributed to the downturn, Macdonald said, and less site preparation this year means there will be a corresponding decrease in planting for next year.
"That’s kind of an indication of what our plant will be for the next year, it will be reduced by whatever number of hectares that we don’t do site prep on" MacDonald said. "Forest companies backing off site prep and tree planting in favour of less expensive natural regeneration has definitely had an effect on our business."
When asked if silviculture funding is adequate MacDonald said "the funds involved are depleting very quickly because the wood harvest isn’t there. When the harvest was there I felt that there were management issues more than fund issues. Things like working over the same ground three or four times trying to achieve the same goal is not efficient management. It’s all part of a process that is quite complicated and obviously the industry is suffering right now so everyone is in survival mode."
MacDonald says he and his company can’t spend too much time worrying about things that are out of their control such as the economy and the government. Instead, they try to remain focused on marketing their skills.
"We have a lot of skilled labour and finding jobs is very difficult. For me it would be easy to point the finger and say that’s mismanaging or we don’t have enough funds. For us we can’t focus on that, we have to focus on our management skills and get to work regardless of if the industry is in a recession" MacDonald said.
"We’ve always been a very diversified company, anything that we can do we will do. That includes everything from mapping all the way down to data collecting, tree planting, and chemical spraying" MacDonald said. "Anything that is possible in the forest we try to accommodate our clients and put ourselves in a position where we can market those skills. For us, it’s just being wise about where we spend our money right now."
Tree planting companies are experiencing a dramatic decline in business as well. Dave Haveman president of Haveman Brothers Forestry Services says that due to the decreased level in harvesting activity this year they expect a 40% drop in revenue in the tree planting arm of their business next year.
"We have the same number of planters this year as last year, some of the jobs almost didn’t go ahead because of the bankruptcy of AbitibiBowater but we’re expecting to be paid through the Ministry of Natural Resources this year which is a good guarantee. They are guaranteeing the payment through the Forest Renewal Fund" Haveman said. "Companies haven’t always been contributing to that fund as much as they should. That just shows us that the larger companies are putting less and less of a priority on regeneration every year."
Haveman says he understands the attraction for forest companies to favour natural regeneration but fears cost cutting in silviculture is a slippery slope which must be carefully managed.
"Natural regeneration is a good cost cutting measure for forest companies and many times it can be used successfully. They have to be careful though where they use that prescription, it does not work on all sites. They seem to be putting less money into forest operation planning as well, which is very important to discover which sites can be successfully regenerated naturally. Money saved on planting could be put towards thinning and spraying which would also even out the work season for summer students" Haveman said.
Haveman believes that the government’s hands-off approach to silviculture is detrimental to the industry and should change.
"I don’t think the current levels of silviculture funding are adequate. More effort needs to be put in, especially in spraying and thinning to promote a healthier forest. They need to be holding the paper companies and contractors more accountable for the work that they do. There needs to be more of a presence from the government in terms of auditing etc."
"I’m not sure if, when the industry turns around, there will be a renewed interest in doing quality silviculture, that’s up to all of us as foresters and hopefully the government as well" Haveman said.◊