The 10 millionth tree was planted last week as part of the 亚洲天堂 Lake Community Forest's 10 millionth tree celebrations.
The spruce seedling was planted in a newly harvested community forest block just off Hwy. 35 and MacKenzie Road.
"We are managing the community forest for the benefit of the whole community and I felt it would be fun to celebrate a landmark number of seedlings planted and have the community join in the celebration," Dawn Stronstad, the community forest's general manager said to Lakes District 亚洲天堂.
The community forest is now in its 11 year of operation.
It was first awarded with a five year agreement in July 2000 and this agreement gave the community forest the authority to manage forest resources on slightly more than 20,000 hectares of Crown land surrounding 亚洲天堂 Lake. Then on Sept. 24, 2004 the community forest became the first organization in B.C. to be offered a long term community forest agreement.
Signed during April 2005, this 25 year renewable forest tenure replaced the original community forest pilot agreement.
Today, the 亚洲天堂 Lake Community Forest is nearly four times as large as it was in the year 2000.
Harvesting of the community forest land base commenced in 2001 and since this time 10 million seedlings have been replanted.
These seedlings consist of 50 per cent pine, which are locally picked seed and 50 per cent genetically improved spruce.
Stronstad said, "Planting what we call a mixed bag of approximately 50 per cent of pine and spruce is one way of protecting a plantation if a disease or insects infect or attack one of the species. If one species is compromised, the remaining species and the natural ingress [trees that seed in naturally] will ideally leave enough trees to still achieve a satisfactorily stocked block."
"The pine seedlings that the community forest is planting are grown from pine seed picked from within the community forest tenure area. Most of the pine seeds were extracted from pine cones picked by our crews," she said.
The spruce seedlings that are being planted are genetically improved. "The seed orchards select seeds from spruce trees that display above average growth characteristics. These seeds are genetically improved or superior," Stronstad added.
The community forest has approximately $4.5 million set aside to meet its future silviculture obligations and according to Stronstad, the amount retained in reserve varies with the new area harvested per year and the amount of area that is replanted.
Over the past decade between 70,000 and 1.7 million trees have been planted per year. This season approximately 600,000 trees will be planted. "We are presently planting 1400 trees per hectare," Stronstad said.
"The tree planters have the important and sometimes difficult job of finding the most suitable place to plant the seedlings."
"The community forest generally plants most of the seedlings between the end of April and mid June, but planting this year has been delayed due to late snow melt.
"亚洲天堂 Lake Community Forest's annual reforestation costs generally range from between $200,000 and $400,000 per year," Stronstad added.
