Enhance or Threaten Alberta Forests

Enhancing or Preserving the Forest Forests can be enhanced or preserved in the following ways: Creating federal and provincial parks Setting aside certain pieces of land for wilderness protection sites and animal sanctuaries Hiring park rangers to monitor and police protected areas and parks Improving recreation sites by restocking lakes and planting trees for campsites

Reforestation Projects Carrying out reforestation projects in these three ways: Natural regeneration—Leave the forest alone. Seeds will fall to the forest floor and sprout on their own. Direct seeding—Gather cones and seeds to be planted by hand or by tractors and other machines. Plant seedlings—Plant small trees grown in nurseries in bare forest areas.

Threatening the Forest Excessive logging—Sometimes, logging companies will remove all the trees in an area. The ecosystem in those places changes completely without the trees. Timber, pulp, and paper production—As the demand for timber and paper increases, more and more trees will need to be harvested.

Threaten Fires—Forest fires are caused by lightning strikes or human carelessness with campfires, matches, or sparks from machinery. Wildflowers and grasses will grow back quickly after a forest fire. The trees will take hundreds of years to regrow. Too much recreational use by humans—Over-hunting, over-fishing forest lakes, clearing too much land for campsites, and building roads to get to the campsites can threaten a forest ecosystem.

Insect attacks—Insects such as pine beetles and spruce bark beetles can destroy huge stands of trees. Overuse of pesticides and insecticides—These chemicals will kill damaging insects and other pests, but they also poison the animals that are needed in the forest. Littering and pollution—Litter left behind can cause animals in the area to die. Some forests never recover after wastes are dumped into bodies of water in the forest. Drought—All living things need water. A forest will die after several years of drought. Forest fires are common when the wood is too dry. Clearing forest land for farming and housing—More and more land is being cleared for farming and new housing developments. The plants and animals that live there lose their homes. The trees and shrubs are bulldozed down, formed into piles, and burned. This is happening to all the forests throughout the world. Flooding—Too much water from rain or spring runoff will kill the trees that normally grow on dry land. The animals in that area will leave, but the trees and other plants die.