Doug Ford is not a Tree-hugger...or Planter

 

I'm experiencing serious BGS today, both in my Lion Lamb and Groundling blogs. I expressed Blog Grumpiness Syndrome in my musing about religious anti-vaxxers in my Lion Lamb blog. Now it is my strong annoyance at the Ontario governments stupid decision to end a program to plant 50 million trees to help mitigate climate change. 

Of course Premier Ford doesn't really believe in climate change, nor does he want his "slash and burn" government to do anything to address it. The argument for ending this initiative is that forestry companies plant millions of trees every year, which is true, so why bother spending taxpayers' dollars on reforestation? Those companies plant monoculture plantations, mostly in Northern Ontario, with the goal of cutting them again as soon as profitable. The trees are essentially crops, and look like them. 


Tree Plantation in Thailand


The government program has planted more than 27 million trees, many in Southern Ontario where forest cover has diminished to as low as 5% in some areas, when 40% is needed for forest sustainability.  have been planted across Ontario through the program, which saved landowners up to 90 per cent of the costs of large-scale tree planting. 

Rob Keen, CEO of Forests Ontario,says that the program was started as a carbon sequestration program, Keen said, but planting that many trees also helps clean the air and water, protect shorelines and reduce erosion. The budget is under $5 million a year and the majority of the funding goes to planting partners, such as conservation groups, stewardship groups and First Nations, who worked with landowners to get trees planted.

A recent assessment published in Nature magazine says that monoculture planting can actually reduce biodiversity rather than increase it, something which those of us who walk through plantation trees have realized. And tree crops, quickly harvested, aren't anywhere as effective as carefully restored, diverse forests in sequestering carbon.  

I'm so frustrated that I've been singing "If a tree falls on Doug Ford, will anybody care?,"  (apologies to Bruce Cockburn) which is not very Christian on my part, I'll admit. As non-violent Christians we should all be indignant about this assault on the lungs of the Earth...take a deep breath David...