Lakehead University Forestry Association - Yearbook (Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada)

Page 22 text:

WHAT IS THE FORESTRY POLICY OF ONTARIO? Amongst a majority of members of the forestry profession, doubtless, there is a general assumption that a sustained yield policy has been adopted in the province and, on the evidence of increasing silviculture activities and rising expenditures in the past five years or more, that the policy is being effectively implemented. Since 1964, for example, outlays of public money on silviculture have gone from $2,000,000 to more than $5,000,000 in 1971, and statistically, at least, the annual reports of the Minister of Lands and Forests reveal in- creases in acres treated, units planted and so on, commensurate with these out- lays . If one should seek to find in the public record an unequivocal declaration of the policy of Ontario in respect of forest lands, one which is known to and supported by all political parties, and which has been defined in all its im- plications, both immediate and long term, for all of our citizens, he may have some difficulty in finding any more substantial basis for the activities mentioned above than the casual interest of the government of the most prosperous of the ten provinces. The Crown Timber Act , which is taken to be the legislative embodiment of provincial philosophy and policy towards public forest lands makes no mention of sustained yield. Although a management plan may be required of a licencee , this, alone, is no assurance that such plan will be little more than an inter- esting academic exercise, or, as has been too often the case, simply a long term timber liquidation projection, in which unaided, beneficent natural processes are offered as the basis for the establishment and growing of the next forest. The Act provides that the Minister may enter into regeneration agreements with licencees to promote and maintain the productivity of cut-over areas. Here, there has been a significant growth in activities and here, perhaps, can be seen a confirmation of the dedication of the government to the principle of sustained continued .