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Forests
Much
of Red Hill Valley is forested, although there are also
lots of meadow habitats. The area is truly the lungs of
east Hamilton.
Two
calculations have been made of how many trees will be lost
if the expressway is constructed through the valley. The
first was done in 1997 by a group of high school students
working under the direction of Dr. Joe Minor. The conclusion
was 47,000 trees would be lost.
 After
this study was made public, the Regional government had
its consultants do their own calculation. They came up with
41,471 trees. They noted: "It should be noted that
this value is only an estimate and that the actual figure
could be higher or lower. Discrepancies between this figure
and the 47,000 trees estimated in Dr.J. Minor's study may
be attributed to the selection of sampling sites and different
sampling methodologies.
What
is common to both estimates is the fact that seedlings and
small saplings have been excluded from the density calculations.
If these life stages were to be included, both estimates
would certainly be higher." (Dougan and Associates,
1998, A-12). The Dougan study also concluded that 36.7 hectares
of "Natural Woodland/Forest" would be cleared
for the expressway and a further 35.9 hectares would be
in the "indirect impact zone". Together these
areas of clearing or major impact constitute 53% of the
forests in the valley.
Forest
Ecosystems of the Red Hill Valley
by Ron Plinte
The
biological diversity, or biodiversity of the Red Hill Valley
is a product of a number of different scales of diversity:
genetic diversity, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity.
Ecosystems (or forests) are at a higher "landscape"
scale of organization that connect individual trees and
tree species to the forest habitats for wildlife. There
are a variety of different forest types in the Valley. The
geography and growing conditions present determine which
types of trees are best adapted to grow. For example, the
upper Valley includes unique escarpment forests, especially
on the north slopes, and the mid to lower sections are mostly
floodplain ecosystems (on the Iroquois Plain).
The
forest biodiversity of the Valley is of especially important
value because large Carolinian forests have become rare
in southern Ontario, and much of that remains is fragmented.
In the Carolinian region, located in southwestern Ontario,
forest cover has been reduced from 80% to less than 10%
of the landscape, wetlands have been reduced from 28% to
5%, and less than 2% of the landscape is in public ownership
(for more information: www.carolinian.org/Cc0.htm)
Listed
below are tree species that are a part of the forests of
the Valley: (Please send any additional tree species
or other information about trees in the Valley you may know
of to: redhill@hwcn.org)
CAROLINIAN
REGION-SPECIFIC AND OTHER SOUTHERN ONTARIO TREES:
- black
cherry (highly valued for its wood for furniture
making)
- black
walnut (one of the most valuable hardwood species
in N. America. Heartwood is light-brown to chocolate
coloured or purplish-brown)
- green
ash
- blue
beech (Carpinus caroliniana)
- butternut
(closely related to black walnut)
- eastern
cottonwood
- wild
crab
- alternate-leaved
dogwood
- red
elm
- rock
elm
- witch
hazel
- shagbark
hickory
- bitternut
hickory
- ironwood
(hop hornbeam)
- honey
locust
- black
maple
- black
oak
- chinquapin
oak (rare in Ontario)
- wild
plum
- prickly-ash
- sassafras
- sycamore
(regionally rare)
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OTHER
TREES
(whose
distribution in Ontario extends further north):
- white
ash
-
large-tooth aspen, trembling aspen
-
basswood
-
beech
-
white birch, yellow birch
-
eastern white cedar
-
pin cherry, choke cherry
-
white elm
-
american hazel, beaked hazel
-
hawthorn, dotted hawthorn
-
eastern hemlock
-
mountain maple, red maple, silver maple, sugar
maple
-
bur oak, red oak, white oak
-
white pine, red pine (planted), white spruce (planted)
-
balsam poplar
-
bebb willow, black willow, peachleaf willow, pussy
willow, sandbar willow, slender willow, shining
willow, stiff willow
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SOME
OF THE TREES FOUND IN THE MID TO LOWER VALLEY
(floodplain
forests of the Iroquois Plain):
- green
ash
- eastern
cottonwood (a poplar species) - huge trees along
the trail and creek
-
white elm
-
shagbark hickory (apparently)
-
sugar maple
-
sycamore
-
black walnut - regenerating widely
-
willow
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TREES
IN THE ESCARPMENT ZONE
(in
the proposed path of destruction of the expressway)
Generally
a diverse forest of mainly mature sugar maple (listed as
an "uncommon" talus community in Hamilton), including
huge sugar maples, huge red oak, some mature black walnut,
and others.
INVASIVE,
NON-NATIVE TREES
apple,
common buckthorn, horse chestnut, sweet cherry, sour cherry,
English hawthorn, black locust, magnolia, Norway maple,
Manitoba maple, European mountain ash, white mulberry, scotch
pine (planted, now self-regenerating), Norway spruce (planted),
Ohio buckeye, tree-of-heaven, basket willow, crack willow,
weeping willow, white willow
Impacts
of Further Development in the Valley on Forests
by Ron Plinte
| "Fragmentation
of wildlife habitat is the greatest threat to wildlife."-
E.O. Wilson, renowned conservation biologist. |
Fragmentation,
or breaking forests into smaller forest patches, at the
landscape scale is studied in the field of landscape ecology.
The
Hamilton Chamber of Commerce and some other expressway supporters
say that the forests that would be destroyed for construction
could somehow be replaced, simply by planting tiny seedlings
along the proposed 4 - 7 lanes of road.
The
reality is that the resulting deforestation and fragmentation
of forests, and of the entire Valley wildlife corridor,
would forever destroy their ecosystem functions and ability
to support "interior forest" wildlife species.
Also, there would be scant remaining open areas to replant,
and the proposed new creek alignment would fragment any
remaining forest landscape. In any case, native trees will
not grow well in the high air pollution levels predicted
adjacent to the proposed expressway.
The
Future of the Forests
The
Valley forests present today are in various stages of succession.
The integrity and biodiversity of the forests is increasing
every year as they continue to mature and regenerate. There
is great potential for the Valley to be a fully diverse
Carolinian forest greenbelt from the escarpment to the harbour
waterfront, with continuation of the Red Hill Valley Revitalization
program of planting native forest species, and with cancellation
of the destructive expressway.
Sources
Carolinian
Canada. http://www.carolinian.org/Cc0.htm
From
Mountain to Lake: The Red Hill Creek Valley. 1998. Peace,
W.G, editor. (Conserver Society of Hamilton and District)
(Available from Friends of Red Hill Valley).
Hamilton-Wentworth
Natural Areas Inventory. 1995. (Available at Hamilton
libraries and from the Hamilton Naturalists Club)
The
Vegetation and Flora of the Red Hill Valley and Environs.
1996. Goodban, A.G. Prepared for the Red Hill Valley Biological
Inventory Project, Hamilton Naturalists' Club.
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Audio
Presentations: Red Hill Valley - No Place for a Road