A tall order for the Ontario landscape
Toronto Star / Mary Ormsby / 07 February 2010
Industrious 19th century shipbuilding was a source of pride for locals who watched the Royal George and an armada of other craft roll off the Royal Naval Dockyard docks into the great lake.
It's also a reason why Queen's University professor Andrew Graham will plant 5,000 seedlings this spring on his Lansdowne, Ont., property about 50 kilometres from that historic Kingston naval cradle.
Private landowners like Graham are being recruited for a government program with tax incentives to replenish southern Ontario's tree population – denuded by 200 years of voracious human consumption – and restore the ecosystem to a healthier state. The 62-year-old prof has already plopped 35,000 seedlings into his own 100 hectares in the past four years to create a green legacy for his family and community.
"It's not about landscaping or making your property prettier,'' said Graham, whose woodlots are now thick with knee-high spruce, pine, cedar and larch.
"It's not about getting free trees. It's about replacing trees. We need those trees."
We need one billion of them – and about 100 years of furiously paced planting to make it happen, says Trees Ontario president and CEO Michael Scott.
