Log Cabin Building: Do I Plant Trees to Replace the Trees I Cut Down?

Description

I often get the question, "Do you plant a tree for every one you cut down?". In this video, I answer the question and give an explanation why I do what I do.

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Video Transcription

hey good morning everybody Sean James here just sitting in this force here I want to address some questions about tree planting that I get quite often I I was sitting there having my tea this morning reading a comment by Kim and on a couple videos actually and she said you seem to be taking an awful lot not giving back and do I plant any trees the answer is of course I give back and no I don't plant any trees and I want to show you why I'm sitting in a pine plantation right now that was planted about 40 years ago it's a property adjacent to my home in central in Ontario and it's a place we like to go for a walk quite often and take kellyo for a walk if you look around me you can see basically at its monoculture its planted red pine predominantly and very little undergrowth this is typical of a force that's managed for lumber in our area live in a county that has a lot of county forest that has been planted and managed specifically for lumber over the last hundred years or so you get these vast tracts like hundreds of acres and they're spread all through the county there's thousands and thousands of acres of this and like I said it's basically monoculture so no undergrowth as you see it's very little diversity here in this forest and as a result there's very few animals I'm going to show you something a little bit different though so this has not been cut in a few years see some stumps here from trees that were cut that was not intensive ly cut they only took out the big stuff that was bigger than nothing 10 inches 10 or 12 inches in diameter so that didn't open up much of the canopy so I'm going to show you some areas that they've cut more intensively and I'm also going to show you an area over here that had a windstorm go through a few years ago and a knockdown most of the canopy of the red pine so it snapped off the red Pines they're a bit of a weak tree especially when they're growing in these plantations and wind and ice storms tend to break off the tops of the branches so I'm going to show you that so the answer is the short answer is no I don't plant any trees and the long answer is I'm going to show you why the idea of planting trees as we cut trees down is strictly a

mercial commercial enterprise it's to replace trees that we've cut down for lumber with other trees that we can use for lumber and 5,200 years it's not that does not mean that's great for the environment if you look at the diversity of the of the plants that grow once a force is cut down or once some trees are cut down and a sudden light reach of the forest floor you're going to see much more diversity much more abundance and productivity from the land you're going to see more insects wildlife and so on these crows are in here behind me some Ravens also they're probably after an owl there's lots of insects and here's all kinds of songbirds it's a it's a thriving ecosystem but not right where I'm sitting this is sterile we're going to show you these areas that are that are thicker now here I am in a productive section of the forest this section has been cut in the last number of years the canopy is open as you can see from above there's less branches that are impeding the sunlight from hitting the ground where it is hitting the ground we've got all these other species coming up so this maple oak pine spruce elder dogwood birch all kinds of wildflowers there's ferns there's rotting branches and cut offs from the tops of the trees on the ground so there's all kinds of insects in here which of course all the things feeding on insects lots of birds here is lots of amphibians there's there's a foxes and and coyotes and deer and handing out moose and the odd bear that comes through here as well so lots of feed in here so the force really benefited from those trees growing so now look at the ground around me and tell me do you see anywhere that you would recommend planting a tree to replace the tree that came down and what am I going to replace it with I'm going to replace it if I'm a commercial lumbermen I'm going to replace it with a jack pine a spruce or ax or applying that I can cut into lumber 50 200 years from now so that's the purpose of Plan tree planting trees it doesn't create a more diverse ecosystem it doesn't create more carbon sequestration because all of this that's happening here is at natural it's what we wanted a force now if I was clear cutting some trees from an area that wasn't able to regenerate itself for some reason then that certainly wouldn't I would replant something but I've seriously I live in Canada take a look at this aerial photograph of the property up in the South River by Algonquin Park take a look at the force around me here and tell me if you think a tree needs to be planted for every one that's been cut now in fact if I cut that I plant that tree it's going to contribute to the monoculture it's going to shade the forest floor again and it's going to eliminate diversity so it's not what I want I want to force to regenerate on its own I want it to do it naturally I wanted to do it well what's beneficial to the to the ecosystem into the wildlife that uses it this is that section that was damaged by a bad ice and windstorm that we had I don't know five six years ago I guess it is now all the red Pines the tops broke off and the owner of the property came in and logged it cut all those trees into a lumber and left all the cut offs on the ground so it's pretty diverse you see that in behind you're trying to walk through that that's raspberries and milkweed and a sumac all great wildlife food and wildlife habitat so you can see these pines are coming up on their own fines and we have red pine some white pine some spruce there birch all kinds of deciduous trees so that's what that's the next phase it's the phase of the forest that comes up next once the once the monoculture once the pines come down so the all the plants that need more sunlight they're going to grow up first they're going to create a thick understory very very diverse lots of wildlife in here lots of habitat so I hope you watch the videos I made on woodland caribou Provincial Park a trip that Joe and I did at the beginning of June you'll see the burns that we went through in the burn that we camped in for two nights that's a six year old forest fire or six year old burn so six years ago 2011 a forest fire went through that area you can see the productivity there actually there's another section here I'll show you of another another forest fire that happened in a different year and the incredible amount of undergrowth that's coming up there we looked up on that hill and said we're going to go hike to that top of that hill and take a look around because it's all clear and and easy to walk through so got out of the canoe and right away even notice that there was some pretty thick underbrush but blueberries raspberries fill thorny bushes lots of wild rose all kinds of different plants that I've never seen before and just extremely productive but so so thick you could barely walk through it

we were fruit spooking up rough grouse that couldn't even fly they would get up there and their wings would be hitting off all the undergrowth in and they would just go back to the ground and start running basically what I'm try to say the forest actually needs sunlight it needs to be thinned out need sunlight to hit the ground for other species to to enjoy their time in the Sun and that's why I don't replant if you if you look at the forest where I'm getting my my trees from they're generally dense I don't clear-cut any section although I don't still don't believe that would be harmful either but I take out selective trees this this property of mine and my wife and I bought it is so dense with trees on there it's so dense with underbrush the wildlife of community they're thriving on all the saplings that is a force that was probably fairly sterile before it was cut all the hemlocks and they're not a lot of the hemlocks for creating that upper canopy that was preventing the Sun from reaching the forest floor that was logged by the previous owner several times

the most recent about 15 years ago so as a result all these maple shoots have been coming up and you'll see that they're just browsed like crazy and there's moose and deer in here when wolf and bear been following them so there's a lawful lot of wildlife on this property that's rough grouse it's foxes there's all kinds of things so there's a nesting habitat for owls wood ducks all kinds of other birds forest forest birds as well as opening birds so it's it's a diverse landscape ID so not only am I not going to plant any trees here I need to thin it out even more so to make the property actually usable and to allow some of those species to grow up a little bit

the animals or maybe maybe browsing a little too intensively so how you'll see me selectively improving parts of the land and selectively leaving a lot of it for natural habitat so I will not be planting trees I'll be encouraging the trees that I do want to be healthy encouraging the plants and the in the ground to be vibrant and and and I'll try to do that with a delicate hand and let nature do its thing because it ultimately knows what it's doing and we just manipulate for our own purposes so allow it to regenerate as naturally as possible keeping in mind that living softly on that land is a lot more eco-friendly and sustainable than living in my modern home and in the town of that that I've raised my kids and so hope you understand now and whether you agree with it or not you have a better understanding of why I do what I do and why I believe it's the right thing to do I have to say I'm responding to questions in not really insults but concerns about what I'm doing building a whole mat of logs out of trees that I cut down but first of all it's all sustainable it's all renewable it's going to brought back and either for my home my modern homes not going to do that and the other thing of course is that you see now that it's not necessary to replant trees I want that diversity of that not planting trees is going to do what I have to say I really appreciate all the comments and the concerns I know most people are genuinely concerned about the environment and you know I'm really amazed actually on this channel how polite people are how much respect how respectful people are and that there's not a lot of insult or old which I see a lot of on other channels so really appreciate that guys I yeah it's very disheartening it's certainly for any YouTube or any video or film maker to have nothing but negative comments thrown at them so I really really appreciate on this channel that we have such a diverse and and a respectful group everybody here appreciates it I'm sure as much as I do so thank you for that so I hope that hope that to answer some of your questions you have any more questions please ask them to do some more videos on answering your question specifically so really appreciate you tuning again I'll see you in the next video Kelly you ready to go to hard come on go home so first win this win [Music]