Seminar on 50 Million Tree program draws a virtual crowd

Jan 19, 2022

Over 120 people fired up their Zoom accounts on January 11 to listen to Jim Hendry of Forests Ontario and Steve Pitt, a forestry consultant and local planning agent, as they went over the ins and outs of how landowners, large and small, can participate in the 50 million tree project, which carries out planting projects on land in Ontario that is suitable for reforestation.

The presentation was sponsored by the Friends of the Napanee and Friends of the Salmon River, and was hosted by Susan Moore.

Reforestation in Ontario has a 130 year history, going back to 1883, when it was clear that the large scale logging practices in Ontario had decimated the forest cover in Ontario in just a few decades.

The Ontario Tree Planting Act was the first initiative, and later the Agreement Forest Program, which started in 1922, and the Woodland Improvement Act of 1966, established long running tree planting programs that provided provincial support for private landowners and municipalities to plant millions of trees.

Both programs were eliminated in 1995 by the Harris government, and in 2008, under Dalton Mcguinty, the Ontario government started up the 50 million tree program.

The program took some time to get established, however, because, as Steve Pitt put it, “a lot of the infrastructure that supported the earlier programs had been decimated and had to be rebuilt and that took a lot of work.

Eventually the 50 Million Tree program has stepped up its operations, and according to Jim Hendry the program is slated to plant 3 million trees in 2022, and is closing in on 35 million trees planted since its inception.

Eligibility criteria for landowners is quite broad. The minimum planting is 500 trees or 1 ha (2,000 trees normally) and the land must be suitable for trees. It must be open land, with few or no trees. The land can be overgrown with brush and weeds, as long as it is not treed.

Open land, wind breaks, riparian areas (areas adjacent to streams or wet areas) an areas effected by climate change are all eligible. Most of the planting since 2008 has been done on private land in Southern Ontario. Some 6,000 projects have been completed, involving 4,000 landowners.

In southeastern Ontario, Frontenac County has had the most planting, with 1.125 million trees since 2008 (81,000 in 2021) followed by Hastings County – 884,000, and Lennox and Addington – 674,000

There are a couple of ways to explore the possibility of participating in the program. In Frontenac County, contacting Rideau Valley Conservation or Cataraqui Conservation, who both act as planting delivery agencies for 50 Million Trees, is one way.

The most prevalent way is to seek out Forests Ontario directly to fill out an online form.

By going to the website forestsontario.ca/en and clicking on programs, the 50 Million Tree program comes up and it includes a description of the program and a registration form.

Jim Hjendry, the eastern Ontario co-ordinator, refers inquiries to Program Delivery Agencies, which take it from there.

Steve Pitt is a retired employee of the Ministry of Natural Resources who worked under former programs during his career and was the coordinator of the Lennox and Addington Stewardship Council before that program was also abandoned by the provincial government.

The Council still exists on a smaller scale, as a not for profit corporation and works with the Friends of the Napanee Rover and Friends of the Salmon River.

He is the Program Delivery Agent for parts of Lennox and Addington and Hastings County's.

He said that there are 5 steps that he works through with people.

Step 1 is the referral, screening and site visit. Step 2 is an assessment of the soil, moisture levels, and a landscape assessment to see what native species is most suitable. Step 3 is the development of a planting plan. Step 4 is site preparation and planting, and step 5 are post planting assessments.

We plant a lot of white pine, white spruce, cedar, red pine, norway spruce, a bit of tamrack, and a little bit of hardwood but not a lot. Hard wood is more expensive and is harder to establish.

All of the trees are sourced at local nurseries from seed that is sourced within the region where the trees are being planted. All of the seed is tracked, and the success of each planted in monitered after a few months, 28 months, and 5 years.

“We have to be very careful about soil moisture, much more than in the past, because droughts are much more prevalent now than they were in the past. Also we used to plant in early April every year, but now we start earlier in some years and later in others because the weather is all over the place now.”

Pitt said that he uses soil maps to determine whether and what to recommend for planting.

He said that he has had a pretty high success rate in the first year, up to 90 or 95 per cent of the trees have survived, and 80% after year 2, with some losses due to drought and rodents.

He said that he as a very strong schedule this year, with about 75,000 trees on 16 sites, and there are about 30 more referrals that are coming his way, which should keep him busy through 2023.

“The uptake on this is phenomenal right now,” he said.

The presentation is available on the Friends of the Napanee River Youtube channel and other videos and information is available at Forestsontario.ca/en or by contacting Cataraqui or Rideau Valley Conservation.