Trees are the answer: as Northern communities look for sustainable material, wood may hit the spot.

• Author: Myers, Ella
• Position: Forestry

Dean Caron likes to compare forests to people--they' re constantly changing. With more than 20 years in the forestry industry, the industry advisor for FP Innovations in Kenora should know.

But this isn't something everybody knows, according to Caron, and he thinks this is where a lot of opposition to the forestry industry comes from.

Caron and Kenora's mayor, Dave Canfield, are fighting back against what they call bad science and advocating for the facts on forestry in Northern Ontario with a study and presentation called "Trees are the Answer."

The concept came to be over lunch in April 2015, with Caron describing to Canfield some work he was doing to educate children about the way forests regenerate after deforestation, and how the forestry industry's harvesting methods resulted in something more akin to reforestation.

Canfield, who also has a background in forestry, was intrigued.

"It's something I've wanted to do. It's been a passion of mine to tell the real story that's going on out there," said Canfield.

The real story, they say, is that forestry, and methods including clearcutting, can be a source of sustainable jobs in Northern communities and offer sustainability to the environment by sequestering carbon.

"I'm not going to defend the way clearcutting looks--it doesn't look nice--but it's not supposed to look nice whether it's man-made or not," said Caron. "It might look horrible right now but it comes back, and it comes back very quickly."

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Ontario's land mass is over 60 per cent forest and many species rely on forest disruption. They also have a relatively short lifespan, and if left to their own devices, Canfield said they can wind up doing more harm than good.

"The Northern boreal forest is a 100- to 150-year forest. It's going die and all that carbon dioxide goes back into the atmosphere," said Canfield. "It has to be cut and sequestered. But nobody ever says that."

Canfield said the study revealed clear numbers on how much carbon can be sequestered.

"When we got the numbers back from FP Innovations...