BY DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

The pine forests in East Grand Bahama are showing signs of “regeneration” post Dorian, a Forestry official with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources confirmed.

Danielle Hanek, director of the Forestry Unit, reported that there is new growth of young pine trees in the damaged forests of East End.

“It means that the environment is catching itself and that the salinity is going down; it means it is restoring itself naturally, which is great,” she said.

Ms Hanek accompanied Environment Minister Vaughn Miller and his team to Grand Bahama on Thursday. As part of Forestry Awareness Week, they attended a tree plant at a school and also met with staff at the ministry’s office in Freeport.

She stated that there are things that the Forestry Unit can do to help facilitate the natural restoration process of the forests.

Four years after Dorian, the damage and standing dead trees is still visible. Even though it looks like all the forests are gone, Ms Hanek said that is not case as the regeneration process has started.

She said their job is to help that process. For that to happen, she said a few things could be done: removing some of the snags or the dead trees; mulching to restore the soil composition to improve the process; and a prescribed burn to help rejuvenate the pine stock.

The forestry official believes the latter would be the best method as it would also help reduce the fuel on the ground where many of the top crowns or the tree tops fell during the storm.

“The idea is really a prescribed burn or doing extraction which will help with the reforestation rejuvenation process,” Hanek said.

Deforestation is another issue that the Forestry Unit, along with other agencies, is trying to address in New Providence.

Minister Miller is concerned about that in his constituency of Golden Isles.

According to Director Hanek, there are two areas of concern where they have seen an aggressive removal of trees. One area is 750 acres, and the other is estimated around 500 acres, she reported.

“So, we did this time lapse from 2020 to present, and that did severely impact the forest,” Hanek said.

She explained that when it rains the forest is not able to trap and retain water. “We saw that effect with the increase of flooding which is one of the main immediate consequences of that,” she added.

Even though the trees are missing, Hanek said it is still classified as a forest.

“It is a huge impact to the fact of our ability to sequester carbon. But all is not lost, we still have the ability to go in and reforest the area,” she said.

Ms Hanek said a multi-agency taskforce has been created to address the issue.

“The Ministry of Agriculture will look at agriculture leases that are not being used wisely; the Crown lands, you have the Police, Defence Force, Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Works, all collaborating together to finding a resolve to the issue,” she stated.