As I’ve been busy painting the exterior of my house for the past couple of weeks, my blog posts have sadly suffered. I’ll try to get back on track now that I’m almost finished painting the front and most challenging wall of the house. More about that in another post. Today, I wanted to write something about the new documentary, “In The Quiet and The Dark” which has just been made available for online streaming on the CBC Gem website. I’ve been waiting to see it for a few weeks. The documentary is about the effort being made to save at least a few stands of Eastern Hemlock here in Nova Scotia, from the very lethal, invasive insect known as the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid or HWA. Good friend and neighbour, Donna Crossland, a forest ecologist and former park ecologist at Kejimkujik National Park, has been spearheading the response, both doing the important work of raising awareness and communicating with government on the need to act quickly, and also in the field, training “Hemlock Heroes” to administer the only effective weapon against HWA – a pesticide which must be injected into each individual tree.
The documentary, directed by Nance Ackerman, and produced by Teresa MacInnes, of Sea To Sea Productions, takes us into cathedral-like, centuries-old Eastern Hemlock forests — both healthy and dying — to let us see what is at stake if we do not move quickly to control HWA infestations. Even with heroic efforts, most of the Hemlock in Nova Scotia are doomed. However, some can be effectively protected and hopefully prove instrumental in re-establishing Hemlock when biocontrols currently in development and approval, can take over. There have been a number of hurdles that had to be dealt with in order to begin treating trees. These are discussed in the documentary.
As HWA spreads into more of eastern Canadian forests, this film should be of interest to everyone who cares about native forest ecology. Watch it to find out more.
As mentioned, view this documentary online on CBC Gem.
https://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/search?q=hemlock
Yes. And from that first post from January 17, 2012 — 11 years ago now::
“When Fred was young, the ecology texts envisioned the eastern North American forest coming to a steady state climax of shade-tolerant Hemlock Tsuga canadensis), Beech (Fagus grandifolia), and Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum), and he wrote youthful poems about the stability of these forests. The deforestation of eastern Ontario in the 19th century was so complete, pests and diseases introduced from Europe so stressful, and the approaching climate change so overwhelming, that there’s no way we’re going to be able to look forward to stable climax forests within the next century.”
https://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/2012/01/visit-to-hemlock-oil-on-canvas-5-x-7-in.html
Incredibly perceptive film, captures the real story of HWA in NS and the struggles to address it led by Donna C.