sites planting mixed species, such as white and red pine. The red pine

would be thinned early and then harvested when mature, leaving the longer— lived white pine as the long—term forest. Some of the varieties they hope

to have for underplanting are red oak, yellow birch, eastern hemlock, sugar maple and beech, long-lived trees that once made up our Acadian forest, an. white birch.

In areas that receive a lot of sun, such as around ponds, the goal is to plant native shrubs, including willow, trembling aspen, hawthorn, wild apple, staghorn sumac, beaked hazelnut and choke cherry. Some of these will be grown in a seed bed and some will be transplanted. All are beneficial in one or more ways to wildlife, either as food, protection, nesting sites, etc.

' Besides cleaning up fallen trees that tend to collect silt and choke the streams, bed loading will be monitored at various points along the waterway. The depth of sediment will be measured before the spring runoff, to find out the peak amount of siltation, then after the spring runoff to see what changes are normally brought about. The same locations will be mon- itored in the future to see what beneficial changes the stream cleaning and erosion control have brought about. Less siltation would mean an increase in the areas of gravel in the stream that could be used for spawning beds. Small log weirs will be used to scour pools to also create favourable en- vironments for fish. e

Local work crews, trained and hired under the Canadian Job Strategy and sponsored through the Southern Kings Branch of the PEI Wildlife Feder— ation, will do some of the work initially. A foreman and six workers have been hired to begin improvements.

The landowners can benefit from the project in many ways, besides the improved wildlife habitat. The wooded riparian areas, many in poor health because of over-maturity, insect damage and lack of management, will be cleaned up and replanted or underplanted by crews at little or no cost; hedgerows and shelterbelts will be planted; and assistance is available to help with the costs of stream-crossing bridges, road construction and other. projects.

Improved havitat should increase the numbers of fish and game, a de- finite benefit to fishermen and hunters. Naturalists will also enjoy the in— crease in wildlife, and perhaps through this Or a separate project a series of trails or a demonstration area could be made accessible. It would be nice to let people see the work that is going on and how improvements can be made to an area.

The watershed management project will serve as a model of cooperation for other parts of PEI and Canada, and hopefully increase awareness so that in the future there will be no need for such projects — people will already be properly managing their lands and waterways and enjoying the benefits.

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