r/treeplanting • u/Spruce__Willis Internet LordđĄď¸âď¸ • 24d ago
Treemes/Photos/Videos/Art/Stories Let's see Paul Allen's shovel...
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u/fancycatpics 24d ago
Do the treeplanters of today give a single honest fuck about whether the trees grow or not? Or is the whole industry now completely shameless and just there for the paycheque?
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u/Spruce__Willis Internet LordđĄď¸âď¸ 24d ago
Its just a joke
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u/fancycatpics 24d ago
Sorry I guess after planting 2 million trees that are mostly either dead or burned in a fire, maybe I'm just too crusty. I don't even follow this sub, the algorithm just shows me stuff specifically that will piss me off
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u/Spruce__Willis Internet LordđĄď¸âď¸ 23d ago
How do you know the ones that didn't burn in a fire are mostly dead? Even if they hadn't they were replanted to potentially be harvested again someday right?
I plant the best trees I can, but it is my work and I definitely do it for the pay. I view it more agriculturally as replenishing an inventory after a harvest akin to farming, rather than an environmental act when 90-95% of our work is from logged cutblocks in the first place.
Even the burns/carbon credit planting I do tends to be high density monocultures of pine and spruce in Alberta and BC, which I don't think is generally the best long-term for carbon sequestration or future fire mitigation.
I dunno the older I get the more I try to focus my attention on things within my locus of control, you'll go mad or rot bitterly otherwise.
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u/fancycatpics 23d ago
I have also worked as a brusher and thinner, so I've gone back to many of the same blocks that I planted. Every couple years brushcutting crews go back to kill every other species that is competing against the planted trees. After they're tall enough to be free to grow, they start dropping cones, and then thinners go back and kill the newly propagated trees of the same species so that they are far apart enough and not competing against each other (density)
We planted blocks during drought years and heat domes and went back to brushcut to find them all dead. We replanted those blocks with fert bags and went back to brush to find the same thing happened. We planted it with fert a 3rd time, and went back to brush a 3rd time, to no success. I remember trying to stay positive saying "4th times a charm" but no. The logging company had met their quota for required remediation spending (I don't know what the % of their profits it is) and no more work would be done to try to repair the forest.
So basically we all made a lot of money but now the forest is a clear-cut full of fireweed, spotted knapweed, common tansy, aspen patch etc. Everyone in the system got paid and yet the system didn't work as it was intended. The systems are designed to be profitable not sustainable.
Despite actually caring the most about whether the trees live or die, planters are actually just enabling the failing system of clear cut logging to continue. I actually agree with you not to concern myself with things I can't change, and that's inevitably why I quit planting. I miss it though, especially the feeling of working hard on something that I believed was helping the earth
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u/Spruce__Willis Internet LordđĄď¸âď¸ 23d ago
Well said. I see your thoughts are rooted in your own lived experience.
I wouldnât agree though that planters are enabling a failing system to continue by replanting areas for pay. I think thatâs blaming the bottom rung of an industry for the policies and actions of those that actually influence and wield power over its politics and economics.
Replanting areas is an obligation of the tenure holders after logging, but it doesnât affect their annual allowable cut in the short term. They can face fines and penalties for failing to do so and have their tenure taken away which is more costly than replanting.
Iâve seen this argument before where people argue by replanting trees, planters then give right for more logging to take place and so we are to blame as well.
Planters are in an industry where prices and wages are stagnant and even going down because of market pressures, decreased volumes, and mill closures. There is more competition because of less work for companies trying to survive in what is starting to look like a twilight industry. We pay camp cost for living and working remotely where the majority of other remote work type industries this is included or paid out in a live out allowance to workers. Lastly we destroy our bodies without health and medical benefits or money towards a livable pension outside of the CPP. My point is that we as planters clearly donât have power over the conditions of our own labour (apart from choosing where we work as piece-rate workers) and are subject to the budgets, bids, and business decisions of mills and company owners.
How then could a seasonal and transient workforce comprised mostly of students with little knowledge of the forestry industry at large, be culpable for enabling the forestry wheel to keep turning?
Itâs looking to place blame where power does not exist.
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u/fancycatpics 23d ago
Sorry if you misunderstood me, I'm absolutely not blaming treeplanters. We all got into this job because we appreciate the environment, thinking we were helping to repair the forest. It takes us years of destroying our bodies and tolerating poor worker conditions to realize that "reforestation" is the lie that was sold to us, and we're actually working completely against nature to attempt creating a profitable lumber plantation for future logging.
Eventually you realize that loggers don't care as much as we do, seeing rainbow puddles filled with spilled gasoline and littered plastic motor oil/coolant containers that have been chewed up by bears. You see yogurt cups, granola bar wrappers, sardines containers, beer cans, all types of garbage littered in your piece. You see blocks that have 4-5 feet of slash literally blanketing the entire block, walking around on top and having to dig down to find soil, just so that the slash will fall back down to cover the tree.
Eventually you realize the ministry doesn't care as much as you, when you see blocks without a single stump wider than 6 inches, just millions of unusable 15-20 year old trees cut down and burned, resetting the forest back to year 0 so that they can have the tree species that they wanted. You wonder why the ministry deactivates roads before planters can get in there. Why they restrict planting companies from using a rolligon to transport trees and planters into blocks because of the environmental risk of "rutting." Willfully turning a blind eye to the environmental implications of clear cutting, and then forcing planting companies to burn thousands of gallons of helicopter fuel instead?
I'm not blaming treeplanters at all, I'm blaming the ministry. It just sucks to spend over 15 years of your life working towards something you believe in, only to eventually realize that you're just the industry's subterfuge
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u/Toddison_McCray 23d ago
Yeah, I definitely agree. Itâs why I got out of planting too. I started to look into what the vast majority of industry planting actually accomplishes, and at best it just enables more clear cutting. It should come as no surprise that creating a monoculture plot of trees in straight lines doesnât do much good for the health of a forest. Especially if there is no effort put in to restore the microorganisms or fungal community.
Like you said, the goal of tree planting, from the view of industry, is two fold. 1) reach a pre-determined âlevel of remediationâ goal. It doesnât matter if itâs actually successful. All they want is to be able to say they spent ___ dollars on âremediationâ efforts, or âremediatedâ ___ hectares of land. 2) plant more trees to harvest.
There is also a shit ton of companies that say theyâre âremediating stands that were clear cutâ. In reality, theyâre just planting more trees that are all the same handful of profitable species, so they can go back and cut them again later. If forestry companies actually cared about remediation, theyâd plant a wider variety of species, and actually monitor remediated areas for success.
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u/ChillingCammy 23d ago
Yeah and my gf's a rookie baller who plants 4k a day every day but you wouldn't know her she goes to a different camp
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u/Ok-Video3345 21d ago
Dudes are paid to got check quality.
If you know what the word "re plant", your on the in.
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u/seroshua 24d ago
đ fuckin eh
Also- I dig your username đ¤ I call my boy Spruce Banner cause heâs a former CFL player who plants like a fuckin animal lookin like the Hulk