The original Acadian forest still exists in the Maritimes but those areas are few and far between.
Community Forests International hopes to change that.
Last Saturday morning, the non-profit organization's tree planters planted 2,000 trees near the site of the old Roundhouse near the Joggins Fossil Centre.
The area is considered a "brownfield" site and the planters were in Joggins to try to remediate the land, which had been used for mining purposes for decades.
"There is a lot of efforts to remediate brownfieilds by planting species of trees that pull the toxins up into the trees' mass," Community Forests International founder Jeff Shnurr said. "And when the tree is cut and taken away, you're actually removing the toxins from the soil."
The planters struck out on their planting expedition at 9 a.m. and by noon they were finished.
"We planted yellow birch, sugar maple, red maple, white spruce, red pine and tamarack," Shnurr, who is from Sackville, N.B., said.
When logging companies reforest land they usually use just one or two species and space the trees six feet apart, but Community Forest International doesn't follow logging company rules.
"We didn't space the trees," Shnurr said. "We planted them where we thought the soil was best."
Shnurr founded Community Forests International in 2008 in Tanzania.
"In 2007, I was living in Tanzania and when I told people that I planted trees in Canada they asked about planting trees in their country, and we just kind of took it from there," Shnurr said. "Our main project is a community tree planting project where we teach rural Tanzanian's how to collect seed and start their own nurseries and how to plant trees."
Community Forrest International now has 1,800 volunteers helping with the project in Tanzania, and have since brought their renewable forest philosophy back to the Maritimes.
Because they're a non-profit, they need sponsorship. Canadian Tire sponsord the project in Joggins, in partnership with Brinkman Reforestation.
"We do a fundraiser here in Canada whereby Canadian tree planters donate a portion of what they make in a day and we use that money to build the nurseries in Tanzania," Shnurr said. "Brinkman is the group that does the fundraiser for us and they set up this sponsorship for us as well. They've been a great help in supporting our efforts."
The other three planters volunteering in Joggins are Colleen Freake of St. Margaret's Bay, Gavin Hardie of Port Elgin and Zac Melanson of Moncton, who just arrived home from Tanzania last week. They all met while planting trees in Canada.
"We have a lot on the go," Shnurr said. "We have an international education program as well, and we all balance different jobs."
The planters are passionate about their tree planting work and wish logging companies would follow the same reforestation policies they do.
"A lot of logging companies will cut trees and plant one type of species," Shnurr said. "Then you run into huge problems with pests and insects, then trees get cut or wiped out, simplifying the diversity of the Acadian Forest in this region. So even though the act of planting a tree is a very good act, there are ways in which you can cause a lot of harm if its not done right."
Shnurr said that a reforested plantation captures only one fifth the carbon dioxide that a "working, viable" forest such as the Acadian Forest will.
"That's a huge reduction," he said. "A single species plantation, in my opinion, is permanent deforestation. You'll never have anything that resembles a natural ecosystem."
This week, Community Forest International is working at a project in Upper-Miramichi, N.B, next week they're off to Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland and after that they will keep trying to restore our landscape in other regions throughout the Maritimes.
"It's something we've all seen be very effective so it's something you can't stop doing," Shnurr said. "For me it's hard to turn my back on something I believe in and that I've seen work."
