Protect Our Forests From Invasive Species

People have been using fire for heating and cooking for millennia. For most of that time people gathered their firewood locally. With the introduction of invasive species, it is more important than ever to gather your firewood locally. If you are going camping buy your firewood locally or if allowed, gather it where you are camping. When you go home leave your firewood at the campsite. If you heat your house with wood its best if your wood is gathered from within 80km of your house. There are a lot of invasive insects, fungus, and pathogens that can be living in your firewood. Things like lymantria moth, balsam woolly adelgid, white pine blister rust and septoria canker. You don’t want to bring these things home to your local forest. These pests can be spread to trees that don’t have the defenses to fight them off. Sick dying forests don’t support the same variety of life that a healthy living forest does. There are so many things that you can do to protect our forests. Learn to identify invasive species and report them to your local invasive species society. Burn your firewood where you buy it. Always make sure your fire is out cold before leaving. Don’t move your firewood to any location that is more than 80kms from where it was harvested. Don’t dispose of yard waste, house plants, hanging baskets, your old Christmas tree, wreaths, swag, or other outdoor greenery that you collected for indoor scenery in the bush. Most landfills have a compost, green, or organic waste area that you can use to dispose of some these trimmings. Invasive plants are different. Most compost will not get hot enough to kill the seeds and vegetative root parts, so they need to be bagged and put in with the garbage. For information on disposal check out rdkb.com. For information on how to stop the spread of invasive species contact the Boundary Invasive Species Society 250-446-2232, info@boundaryinvasives.com, www.boundaryinvasvies.com and on Facebook.