IF DUFFERIN’S new tree bylaw is to be adopted, we would strongly urge county council to consider amending its definitions so trees planted by the present owner of a property adjoining a woodlot do not wind up becoming a part of that woodland.

Amaranth Deputy Mayor Walter Kolodziechuk raised the issue when he said he had planted trees on a small plot (ergo thought he controlled them) but, under the proposed bylaw, he would need a permit to cut a Christmas tree that he, himself, had planted if his stand should adjoin a woodland owned by another party.

The problem he had was in a phrase, “irrespective of ownership,” that would be used to define the size of a woodland. The county controls woodlands greater than one hectare in area.

His motion to delete the phrase was lost after Melancthon Deputy Mayor Bill Hill pointed out that the Ministry of Natural Resources identifies areas of woodlands “irrespective of ownership.”

We do agree that the area of a woodland should not be subdivided on the basis of ownership. If it were, colluding groups of property owners could theoretically clearcut vast swaths of Ontario’s forests.

That said, it is most certainly unfair to punish a property owner for planting trees at a location adjoining a natural-growth forested area by forcing him or her to obtain bureaucratic approval of anything done within his or her personal copse.

County council need not “throw out the baby with the bathwater” on this issue. It need not delete the offending phrase. It needs only to insert a “notwithstanding” to amend the area definition, such that a growth of trees planted by the present owner does not become a part of woodland that existed at the time of the planting.