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Cover
Publisher’s Message for DYNAMIC FOREST
To shed light on today’s cultural, social, economic, and political issues that are shaping our future as Canadians, Dundurn’s Point of View Books offer readers the informed opinions of knowledgeable individuals.
Whatever the topic, the author of a Point of View book is someone we’ve invited to address a vital topic because their front-line experience, arising from personal immersion in the issue, gives readers an engaging perspective, even though a reader may not ultimately reach all the same conclusions as the author.
Our publishing house is committed to framing the hard choices facing Canadians in a way that will spur democratic debate in our country. For over forty years, Dundurn has been “defining Canada for Canadians.” Now our Point of View Books , under the direction of general editor J. Patrick Boyer, take us a further step on this journey of national discovery.
Each author of a Point of View book has an important message and a definite point of view about an issue close to their heart. Some Point of View Books will resemble manifestos for action, others will shed light on a crucial subject from an alternative perspective, and a few will be concise statements of a timely case needing to be clearly made.
But whatever the topic or whoever the author, all these titles will be eye-openers for Canadians, engaging issues that matter to us as citizens.
J. Kirk Howard
President
A Note from the General Editor
A tree’s leaf symbolizes our country on the national flag. Since Canada’s centennial, Gordon Lightfoot’s potent imagery about “the green dark forest ” has moved us with primordial feelings about the dense woodlands that are both background and living presence in our lives. National income in the billions and jobs for many thousands come from exporting timber and wood products.
Forests come with issues, too. As well as enduring trade disputes with the Americans over softwood lumber, there have been determined battles between loggers and “tree huggers” about such things as felling the world’s tallest Sitka spruce in B.C.’s Carmanah Valley, logging the West Coast’s wilderness Stein River Valley, and harvesting in Ontario’s provincial parks.
The saga of our country is entwined with forests. However, the reality of our national life — including economic, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions — being inextricably linked with forests does not mean we’ve got a clear fix on just what this relationship is, or should be.
Given that, it’s clear greater knowledge and awareness are needed. Dynamic Forest offers a welcome guide to the forest and our relationship with it. Malcolm Squires’s informative and engaging account reveals the intrinsic dynamism of forests, as well as the evolving outlooks of those living in harmony with them. Forester Squires scrutinizes the shortcomings of views ardently held, upholds the strength of Canadian democracy in shaping public policy, and demonstrates how the quest for “balance” in forestry policy and practice must account for the fact that, in nature, nothing is static or unchanging. He moves us beyond “logging” to forest management. He reminds us that without plants we can’t continue to exist, but they can do very well without us. He takes us into his natural home — the boreal forest — and shows how lessons from Newfoundland and northwestern Ontario provide guidance for public policy and private action in the great boreal expanse from our Pacific to Atlantic coasts.
With “dirt under the nails” wisdom drawn from years of wide experience, Malcolm Squires makes a compelling case, applicable to far more than forestry, for avoiding destructive polarization and for seeing how knowledge promotes respect.
J. Patrick Boyer
General Editor
Point of View Books
Dedication
To Muriel, who has shared my love for her with my love for the forest
Epigraph
The wisdom in nature is distinguished
from that in man by the co-instantaneity
of the plan and the execution, the
thought and the product are one, or
are given at once …
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Contents
Foreword by John Kennedy Naysmith
Introduction
1 Canada Is a Forest Nation
2 How I Became a Forester
3 The Boreal Forest Needs Sound Science
4 Each Species Has Unique Requirements
5 Fire — Nature’s Renewal Method in the NWO Boreal Forest
6 Harvesting the Boreal Forest
7 Forest Practices — Today’s Methods
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Foreword
This book, Dynamic Forest, is the product of an experienced forester’s perspective on a significant area of Canada’s vast boreal forest, which in turn is typical of boreal forests indigenous to northern regions around the world.
The deep understanding that Mac Squires acquired of the boreal forest is the product of more than six decades of close association with it. An association that began as a boy growing up in a forest community in Newfoundland, where he spent much of his time roaming the forest and, as he says, “observing it going about its business.” With that background, it was natural that he would choose to study forest science at university. A choice which in turn led to a very successful career as a professional forester, one characterized by his first-hand understanding of the boreal forest community.
The business Mac refers to stems largely from the connectedness of trees, water, air, and soil. A recent study of Canada’s boreal forest suggests that the collective value of that connectedness, when quantified in terms of carbon storage, flood control, and water filtering, is in the order of $700 billion annually. By comparison, the average annual value of renewable and non-renewable products from Canada’s boreal forest that flow through the market place is roughly 10 percent of that figure.
Going about its business, to be sure, and that study pertains only to Canada and does not include any of the boreal forests elsewhere in the world. Twenty-first century forests, considered on a global scale, have become invaluable.
A feature of Mac Squires’ career in recent years has been his ability and willingness to communicate with the public on a broad spectrum of forestry topics, ranging from understanding how the forest works, to forest management strategies and initiatives directed at ensuring healthy forests in the future. An example of his success at reaching out to the larger community is the series of some sixty articles that he wrote over a three-year period for publication in a northwestern Ontario daily newspaper.
The considerable response that the published columns elicited ranged from appreciation for improving the readers’ understanding of the natural forces inherent in the forest to thanks for helping readers gain an informed view regarding the effects of human intervention and subsequent efforts to maintain productive forest land. Not all readers supported the nature and extent of the latter. In Mac’s view, that was fine. He felt that the purpose of the articles was to facilitate productive discussion based on correct information. That was happening.
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