‘We’re planting trees’: What is tree planting really doing for the environment?

Clear-cut land to be planted in northern B.C. (Photo by: Dale David Kendall, 2020) 

In every direction, the only things left are piles of dead branches and tree stumps.

Equally spaced throughout are lone standing trees. The trucks that had come through years ago had scarified the land, literally ripping it apart to expose the dirt so new trees could be easily planted. It made the earth look like it had been mauled by giant claws. New growth spurts up in those trenches, poplar bushes and giant stinging nettles.

And it’s eerily quiet. 

I know because I’ve been there. Stepping into a clear-cut piece of land was one of the most disheartening things I saw as a tree planter, a job I took up during the summers as an undergraduate student. Not only were the trees gone, but evidence of humans was found in the gas stains and partially decomposed coffee cups that were still there. To see the destruction of the forest firsthand felt like bearing witness to a massacre. 

Many people go planting because they’re motivated by making an impact on the environment. But planting trees is not a perfect solution. It often invades animal habitats and plants mostly genetically modified monoculture. 

“I distinctly remember standing with my foreman at the top of this hill and just looking down,” says Ashley Moodie, “and just seeing nothing but cut-block. It’s hectares and hectares of cut-block. And you realize that you don’t hear any birds.” 

Moodie, 27, is a tree planter from Edmonton. She’s studying archaeology and works for a tree nursery in the offseason. At the nursery, she works for oil and gas companies as part of their reclamation efforts. They raise trees in the nurseries to be planted on the land after mines or oil fields close. 

Cut-blocks refer to pieces of land that have been cleared by logging trucks. Forestry regulations across the country require that logging companies leave piles of branches to protect the soil and provide habitat for rodents. Planters call these piles “slash.” Logging companies are also required to keep a certain number of trees standing in each clear-cut. 

Because of the way they were planted, these trees often have no branches at the bottom. It’s proof that, as it was growing, so were hundreds of trees around it, all competing for the same sun. The trees that are left look like toothbrushes protruding across a baren landscape overflowing with slash. 

Logging has existed in this country since before it was called Canada, first for sustenance and now, since the industrial revolution, for export and the production of goods. But the push for logging companies to put back some of the trees they’d cut down didn’t come until after World War II when demand for Canadian pulp and paper soared. 

(Left) A tree planter navigating the clear-cut landscape and slash while planting. (Photo by: Graham Perry, 2018)

The Canada Forestry Act of 1949 and the Crown Timber Act amendments of 1952 and 1954 forced the logging industry to make promises of regrowth. But planting efforts have not had the same amount of time to catch up to the logging industry. 

According to Natural Resources Canada, trees cover more then 400 million hectares of land from coast to coast in this country. Most of these forests are publicly-owned, with private ownership, including logging companies, making up only six per cent. Each year, around 750,000 hectares are harvested. Only half of that is ever planted back the same year. 

Forests today are managed by teams of scientists and experts. They pick the trees most suited to grow in certain areas and how many should fit within a given piece of land. 

Tree planters come to camps with hopes for money, a break from society, a stab at saving the planet and a good time. Many are leaving with more than they bargained for. But in the wider public, little is known about what happens in planting camps. 

Amidst growing environmental concerns, the #MeToo reckoning and the physical and mental isolation felt throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, digging into these longstanding themes in the planting industry can shed light on society at large. To leave this story untold is a disservice to an industry that has been romanticised and remained elusive in Canada for decades. 

Canada’s trees are old and valuable, and also one of our largest carbon sinks. Acts of protest against the logging industry have been happening for decades, like recent blockades at Fairy Creek in British Columbia. 

Our trees are also a fundamental part of our landscape and a significant part of this country. But the culture of the camps of people that put back a lot of our trees is not something we understand. 

And the legacy of our forests will continue to impact our social and physical environment for years to come.

But forestry practices worry some people. Some projects have very little diversity in the species that are being planted. And maintaining the health of the forest sometimes comes at the expense of other species that are killed with pesticides to encourage the trees to grow faster. 

Moodie started tree planting in 2019 and is heading into her fourth season this year. She started working with planting companies that had been contracted by logging operations to replace the trees that had been cut down. She now prioritizes work with reclamation projects. 

“It’s a bit different when you’re on a cut-block compared to a land reclamation project where the land is actually beautiful and you’re just going in and reforesting,” she says. 

It often takes an hour just to drive to the block of clear-cut land a company has deemed ready for replanting. That landscape on winding logging roads varies between dense pine forests and vast expanses of logged land. 

For some, tree planting feels like saving the world. And to an extent, it is. 

“Regardless of what it is you’re doing, you are planting a tree,” says Moodie. 

In the off season, she works with tree nurseries to get the trees ready for the following season. She says that it’s misleading to a lot of people when she says she works for oil and gas companies. They contract nurseries to raise trees as part of their reclamation efforts. But work with nurseries is about growing native species and ensuring that the land that is reclaimed by those companies will remain resilient. When she’s not working at the nursery, she’s putting those trees, or ones just like them, into the ground. 

One of the many nurseries near Attawapiskat, O.N. (Photo by Sarah Pledge Dickson, 2017)

“I tell them, ‘well no, I’m the one that comes in and plants the trees,’” she says. 

Lark Richard started planting in 1996. He started planting at 21 and, now 46, is planning to retire. He and his partner just had their first daughter, only a month old, and one they planned around the planting season. Most of his seasons had him planting in northern Ontario and southern Alberta. In the offseason, he works as a consultant and certified arborist and says the act of planting a tree is an incentive to a lot of people. 

“I think that one of the things that draws people to tree planting is planting trees,” says Richardson. “Like the idea that we’re planting trees.” 

Fundamentally, that is what’s happening. Planting companies bid on reforestation contracts across the country. The successful company hires a crew of tree planters to go in and put the trees they’ve been requested to plant, back into the ground on behalf of logging companies.

But the idea that you’re making an impact can feel like a misconception when you set foot on a piece of clear-cut land. 

Oakley Meister grew up in rural Ontario surrounded by forests. When he went planting for the first time in 1999, he didn’t think much about the trees he was putting into the ground. Now, some of the work he does is on old-growth forests. These are the forests where you could lie across the stump and not reach from end to end. 

“There’s a misconception that you’re out there, ‘Greenpeace’ style, saving the world,” he says. “But when you’re out there planting old-growth cut-blocks, it’s like the oldest things in the world has to die for me to do the thing that I love the most.” 

What he loves the most is putting trees into the ground. 

The trees that are planted aren’t usually much bigger than your forearm. To plant one, you take a short shovel and bury the eight-inch-long spade into the ground. By moving the handle in a “C” shape, you open a hole big enough to fit the short pod of dirt that’s at the bottom of the sapling. Careful to keep the pod straight, you slide it in behind the shovel and remove the blade from the dirt. With either your hand or your foot, you push the hole closed and walk away. 

“One, two, tree,” is a mantra that plays inside your head. One step, another step, and then throw your shovel into the ground. Get back up, take two more steps and plant another tree. “One, two, tree.” 

James Steidle, 43, grew up surrounded by forests between Quesnel and Prince George, B.C. His father worked at the sawmill before it closed and many of his earliest memories are coloured by the logging industry. After spending a few seasons planting trees, he got involved in environmental advocacy. 

His sister became a forester. He recalls her coming home and showing their family a map of the planned deforestation of their backyard. 

“I remember my sister rolled out this map of our area. And it showed that everything was going to get clear cut, just wall to wall clear cuts,” he says. “A plan that’s 50-60 years in advance. And that kind of blew me away.”

He went planting for the first time in 2008 before setting his sights on advocacy work around some of the ways forests are managed. To him, tree planting is a Canadian rite of passage, but he worries about the future of the industry and what that means for Canadian identity.

“Tree planting, it’s a rite of passage, but it’s glorified in the media,” he says. “Because what we’re doing is not something to glorify. We’re making these forests more likely to fail, we’re increasing the risk of forest fire, we’re reducing wildlife habitat. We’re getting rid of a lot of what makes our identity what it is.” 

From left to right: Connor Zinick, Rosanna Katrin and Emma Looney walking into their piece of land to plant that day. (Photo by: Graham Perry, 2016) 

 He remembers childhoods on Rosebud Mountain, an old growth fir forest next to his childhood ranch in British Columbia, before it was logged in 2010. Despite being surrounded by logging most of his life, he says it was a wake-up call. 

“I think the part that really caused me to wake up was probably not until 2010 when they logged Rosebud Mountain, which is a beautiful old growth forest next to our ranch,” he says. “It felt like a little part of me had been destroyed. That's a hill that I kind of grew up on.”

John Innes is a professor of forestry at the University of British Columbia. He says understanding the difference between forestry and logging is crucial. 

“Forestry is growing trees,” he says. “But in the end, you cut them down, and that’s the logging part.” 

Innes also says that when we think about forests in terms of more than just lumber, it changes how we see trees.

“Sustainable forestry is practiced in a way that emphasizes the health of the forest and the forest ecosystem, but at the same time, yields goods and services that are valued by humans,” he says. “That doesn’t necessarily mean lumber. It could be bark products, it might be cork, it might be fruits.” 

He urges us to think about trees differently. Trees are a fossil fuel-based material, and one that he says we can replace much more easily than other resources. A carbon sink is something that absorbs the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Trees act as a carbon sink, absorbing carbon as they grow. 

“The advantage of using wood is that the trees grow back. Carbon continues to be taken out of the atmosphere. And when you cut a tree down, there is some carbon that's released,” he says. “But if you're going to be using the wood in buildings or in something that's going to last some time, then it's basically a sink for as long as it’s in use.” 

This means that the wood that holds up houses keeps in all the carbon it pulled out of the atmosphere while it was standing. As the tree decomposes, whether that’s while it’s in use or in a landfill, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere to be absorbed by another tree. 

Forest fires release carbon in a big dump. Steidle worries that the way we plant trees makes forests more susceptible to burning down. He says that the trees we’re growing are almost all conifers, or trees with needles that last all year long. Deciduous trees, or broadleaf trees, with seasonal leaves are rarely planted and often removed from forests with a process called brushing or spraying. 

Brushing happens when certain trees are cut down intentionally to make space for other trees. Spraying is the process of using a pesticide that targets specific trees, often deciduous ones according to Steidle. 

Sometimes, however, this process can contribute to biodiversity and resilience in the forest. 

Zach Melanson co-founded Community Forests International (CFI) in 2006, a Canadian non-profit organization based in New Brunswick. The non-profit started with reforestation efforts in Pemba, off the coast of Zanzibar. Now, they work to reforest sustainably in New Brunswick. 

Melanson started planting trees himself in 2005 in Canada. He says that managing a forest properly is what makes it an efficient carbon sink, something that doesn’t happen in most reforestation projects.

“Interestingly enough, harvesting wood can be really good for a forest,” he says. “Managing a forest more sustainably can actually sequester more carbon, increase biodiversity, do all these things.” 

For Melanson, tree planting is not inherently good. 

“We’ve all been trained to think ‘how could planting a tree be bad?’” he says. “And the simple answer is: there was a big tree there and you cut it down to replace it with a small one.” 

(Left) A crew of planters in interior British Columbia sitting on the stump of an old growth tree. (Photo by Dale David Kendall, 2021)

But Innes says that we need to reconceptualize our ideas of forests. Hundreds of years ago, those big trees were used to make the masts on ships. Protecting old growth forests is important because we no longer need to use trees of that size. But smaller trees are easier to manage. 

“I think the important thing here is to consider the scales that you're working at. Cutting down a tree is bad for that tree. However, the environment is much bigger than that,” Innes says. “What we're seeing more and more is the replacement of old forests with young forests. And if you're just looking from outer space, yes, it's green, but it's a different type of green.”

Steidle says that although we’re told that logging companies are putting the trees back, this doesn’t capture the full picture. 

“I think that’s a big myth that tree planters are fed, that we’re just kind of replacing what we’re taking,” he says. “And that’s totally not true.”

When tree planters show up to the block of land they’re going to reforest, they’ll find bins or boxes of tiny trees wrapped in bundles of 10-15. Usually, there’s no more than two or three species to plant. 

(Right) A bundle of jack pine trees and the sticker someone from the nursery left for a planter to find. (Photo by Graham Perry, 2018)

“We’re going out to these forests and we’re replacing a mixed forest with trees and very limited diversity,” says Steidle. 

Rob Keen is a registered professional forester and the chief executive officer of Forests Ontario, a non-profit focused on tree planting, forest stewardship, forest education and awareness. He says that diversity can regenerate naturally. 

“Although people may perceive that there's a monoculture that's being planted, other species are coming back in naturally,” says Keen. 

Keen says that it’s important to recognize that nature will regenerate on its own. Sustainable forestry can mimic natural tree patterns to ensure that forests come back as naturally as possible. But it’s impossible to talk about Canada’s forests without also talking about climate change. 

The trees we put into the ground now have to be able to withstand warming temperatures, increased numbers of floods and changing soil.

“Climate change will have an impact on which species are going to be most suited to the site,” Keen says. “We're going to need to adapt our practices to ensure that our forests can properly adapt to the impacts of climate change moving forward.”

This is something Lann Dickson has noticed in his 27 seasons planting trees in British Columbia’s interior. He says that he’s noticed changes in the tree species he plants in the regions he’s been planting for almost three decades. 

“That's definitely happening,” he says. “The temperatures have risen so much that it impacts a lot of tree species. They’re doing experiments, planting trees that would be growing in California up here now.” 

Keen says that forest management has to adapt with climate change. 

“It may not be practical anymore to think that we’re actually going to be able to manage our forests to be the same kind of forests that were there in the past,” says Keen. 

In the future, reforestation efforts might look very different. Innes explained how saplings are normally planted at about two to three years old. Now, drones are becoming popular for seeding efforts in some more treacherous grounds. But tree planters will always be needed. 

But for planters like Moodie, clear-cut land is still disheartening. She’s grateful she gets to see first-hand how the destruction looks and knows it’s not something everyone is aware of. 

Tree planters navigating slash and clear-cut land in interior British Columbia. (Photo by Dale David Kendall, 2021)

“You don’t know because you don't go the 10 meters back past the highway to see that there's actually no forest there. It's all just nothing, it's all been ripped out,” she says. 

Going back this season, she knows she’ll see it again. She’s more concerned, however, about what she won’t see. 

“And you just know, I'm not going to see a bear here, I'm not going to see a wolf, I'm not going to see anything because nothing was there, because there are no birds,” she says. “And then all you hear is a quad off in the distance or somebody's truck. And it's like, this is so depressing.”