Most of the 12 deputations at the Natural Heritage Committee Monday night are happy that Chatham-Kent is extending the temporary tree cutting bylaw until April.
The bylaw was set to expire December 14, 2021 but it will be extended until April 30, 2022, at 11:59 p.m.
Council members want more community input about managing local woodlots before they decide on a solution and voted 9-6 to extend the bylaw.
A group called CK Woodlot Preservation called the bylaw extension fantastic news to save what's left of local forests.
"Without an extension we will see more of the last few forests fall. We can’t afford to lose them. Hopefully, this time, Council will see that there is nothing that can work like regulation to stop the decline in our forest cover that has been happening," read a post on its Facebook page. "Thanks again to those councillors with the wisdom to interpret the decrease in forest acreage as a decrease in forest acreage. One man with an excavator can destroy in a few hours what took Mother Earth, hundreds of years to create."
CK Woodlot Preservation noted that forests create nutrient-dense, aerobic soils, eliminate greenhouse gases, cool down, filter and hold water, provide habitat for animals, and regulate climate.
The Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority (LTVCA) provided the committee with an updated mapping of forested areas. They mapped all forests 0.5 hectares and larger in the municipality until March 2020 and smaller forests are not included in the numbers to be consistent with 2015 numbers. LTVCA CAO Mark Peacock said the total percentage of forested area across the municipality is 4.21 per cent, including provincial parks and First Nations areas.
Peacock said a forest takes about 20 years to take shape.
The conservation authority also reported that the municipality has lost 161 hectares of forest since 2015 and 10 per cent is a goal to achieve. They also reported that around 366 hectares have been planted in that time. They are also looking at ways to include tree cover in urban areas in the numbers.
CK Woodlot Preservation previously reported that Chatham-Kent has the lowest tree coverage in all of Southern Ontario at 3.5 per cent and dropping. They calculate approximately 200 acres of forest has been lost between 2009 and 2016 in a small part of Eastern Chatham-Kent, North of the 401. The World Health Organization recommends a tree coverage of 10 per cent for a healthy community.
The conservation authority noted it has a difficult balancing act to perform between maintaining tree cover, farm land, and a fertile fresh water fishing industry in Wheatley, but said the municipality is not doing a badly as before on the issue. Too much tree cover affects farm land and vice versa, and phosphorous run-off from farms create large algae blooms in Lake Erie that could impact the largest freshwater commercial fishing port in the world.
The Kent Federation of Agriculture (KFA) is pleased that the reports continue to support their assertion that as the primary stewards of the land in Chatham-Kent, farmers continue to increase the total land area of tree cover, wetlands and prairie grass in the municipality.
"While we acknowledge the nominal decrease in the actual percentage of tree cover as provided by the 2020 SWOOP analysis, this natural attrition of area (833.8 ha.) over 10 years is more than offset by the increase in tree plantings (379.7 ha.), wetland restoration (212 ha.) and tall grass prairie restoration (210 ha.) over 8 years of analysis," said the KFA in statement on Tuesday. "These results show that the on-going partnership between rural land owners and our two local conservation authorities is successful in protecting our environment and sustainably supporting the efforts of both of these vital organizations."
KFA President Jay Cunningham said Ontario loses 175 acres of prime agricultural land per day and the KFA continues to promote an environment of education and participation in the efforts of the LTVCA and the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority so farmers can continue to improve the natural resources of Chatham-Kent without further regulation and restrictions on landowner’s rights and freedoms.
Cunningham noted Ontario has 66 per cent tree cover compared to a federally suggested provincial tree cover of 30 per cent.
The Kent Federation of Agriculture (KFA) has previously said it doesn't agree with a tree cutting bylaw.
"On April 26, 2021 CK, Council enacted a Temporary Tree Cutting Bylaw for 120 days, that in our view, negatively impacts the property rights of all rural land owners in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent," read a statement from the KFA. "Prior to the launch of the consultation process, the KFA had offered on numerous occasions to be a primary source of consultation and discussion on this process, based on our industry representation; however, you have chosen a third party anonymous system to tabulate results and allow input from any source. Given that our members have the greatest stake in this proposed bylaw, we feel that this approach is inequitable, ineffective and highly biased towards a specific predetermined outcome."
The next committee meeting is December 13, 2021 where an update on more public consultation is expected.