Sure.
To add a little bit more to the percentages you were providing, Environment Canada put out a report a few years ago called “How Much Habitat is Enough?”. It's in its third edition now and speaks to the need for at least 40% forest cover for the forest to sustain itself in a healthy manner. If you get anything less than that, particularly when we see climate change advancing, forests will feel the effects of climate change. They won't be able to adapt as readily to climate change. You need to have that large, healthy, contiguous, diverse forest in order to adapt as we see climate change progressing.
With regard to the cancellation of the 50-million tree program, yes, it's quite devastating. It was the largest afforestation tree planting program in Ontario.
To qualify afforestation from reforestation, the forest industry is required under law, under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, to regenerate any areas they harvest. Part of that could be due to planting. With the work that we're doing....
That's for Crown lands. That's part of the forest industry. It's just regular business. They'll plant 60 million to 80 million trees per year in northern Ontario on Crown public lands to fulfill their legal agreements.
The areas that we're planting are due to afforestation, which is essentially establishing new forest cover. This is done in abandoned agricultural fields or some municipal lands that traditionally haven't had forests on them. We're creating new forest cover with this program.
Certainly with the loss of the 50-million tree program, there is no other program that services large-scale tree planting to the tune of two and a half million to three million trees per year for southern Ontario to regenerate these areas to get that forest cover up to 40%. It's extremely devastating.