I listen for sounds of movement but the woods
are as silent as the wet stones on the hillside. Rain drips off my hunting cap
brim, each drip telling me that no sensible deer, or person, would be out in
this foul weather.
I am too stubborn to go home and get out of the
wet. So I sit in the rain, thinking wildly abstract thoughts.
One of my wilder thoughts is about why we can’t
make some use of all the dead and dying wood in the forest. The forest floor is
littered with trees that have died and fallen, or been taken down by the wind
or in logging. And, there is much standing dead that remains solid and sturdy.
This is especially noticeable today, and not
just because my mind is damp and wandering. I am in a logging area behind Dan
Lake in the Frost Centre lands. The amount of wasted wood left here to rot is
astonishing.
Aside from the usual deadfalls there are piles
of tree crowns, hundreds of chunky branches and a variety of logs left behind.
This is not a criticism of the loggers, who are
doing what they are instructed to do. They are following guidelines set by the
Ministry of Natural Resources which oversees the logging.
In fact, they appear to be going beyond the
guidelines. In one staging area they have left standing a magnificent and elderly yellow birch which will live a bit
longer to spread its seeds. And they have been more than tolerant of any
hunters or others passing through their work areas.
The crowns and branches and leftover logs are
being left to rot because that’s what the government wants.
Some time back I let slip within earshot of a
government official that I was taking firewood from a logged over area. I
received a lecture on why it is good to leave wood to rot in the forest and was
told to apply for and pay for a licence to collect firewood.
The official’s lecture on the benefits of letting
wood rot in the forest was correct, to an extent. Trees that die naturally are
a necessary part of the cycle of forest life.
However, logging, which when done selectively
aids forest health, creates more rotting wood than any forest needs. Clearing
out the excess and putting it to use would be helpful to the forest and to
people who could use it.
I can think of several uses, the most important
being firewood for heating. Many people turned to electric heat for homes and
cottages in the days when electricity was affordable. Now the cost of heating
electrically is prohibitive for many people and they depend more on firewood.
The government says people can collect firewood
on Crown lands if they apply for a licence and pay government timber charges.
Charging citizens for collecting firewood from
deadfalls and logging leftovers is an example of government and its
bureaucracies at their worst. There is
no cost to government for people to collect fallen timber for firewood, so
licensing charges are simply another tax, another money grab.
If there is a need to supervise people
collecting firewood from extensive deadfall areas, let private organizations do
it. Church groups, service clubs and the such could supervise deadfall
harvesting and make a few much needed bucks doing it.
Governments do not view wood as a renewable heating
resource important to people living outside major urban areas. They see it as a
pollution problem, which is nonsense considering the many sources of human-made
pollution.
Government thinking on fuel wood will not change
because government policies, even policies affecting rural areas, are made in
downtown urban areas. They are made by urbanites who listen to major media
outlets, lobbyists and special interest groups, all of which occupy urban
downtown offices.
Yes, rain falling in a quiet forest tends to
produce abstract thoughts. Thoughts that bring to mind Henry Thoreau’s essay Civil
Disobedience, in which he accepts that “government
is best which governs least," and by extension "government is best which governs not
at all."
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