Photo: Gakwi:yo:h Farms staff shown installing sap (maple) collection tubing over the past few weeks on the Allegany Territory. Plastic tubing produces higher yields of cleaner sap than the traditional bucket method of collecting sap and greatly reduces the labor involved with sap collection. Photo courtesy of Seneca Media & Communications Center.
Submitted by The Climate Change Taskforce
The main sectors affected by climate change can be grouped as follows: agriculture, forestry, buildings, coastal zones, ecosystems, energy, public health, telecommunications, transportation, and water resources. Taking a combination of agriculture and forestry, specifically the Sugar Maple Tree. We can look at how changes in our environment can affect this amazing tree.
The Sugar Maple Tree is important to Seneca Culture and it serves as a medicine. It also takes-in carbon dioxide, gives-off oxygen, drop its leaves to the forest floor to help our soils, provides a home to many creatures, wakens our taste buds with its sweetness, and other natural services.
However, climate change has been affecting our winters by causing a gradual trend towards warmer winters with less sustained snow pack.
Snow pack serves as a blanket to the protect tree roots from freeze and thaw cycles that cause damage and hinders overall growth. In a 10-year study of sugar maple plots, the plot where the protective snow blanket was removed, the trees showed a 40 percent decline in growth within the first two years.
Furthermore, sap flow is tied to the freeze and thaw cycles as well as the growing season conditions of the previous year, so with the continued effects of climate change, the production of maple may adjust its optimal growth and production range northward by about 250 miles by the year 2100.
The actions we prepare for and take today can help thwart the decline or loss of this important aspect of who we are and what sustains us.
Predicting what the future carbon dioxide levels will be and their effect on our lives involves many variables, however one thing for certain is that our natural resources are finite and we can make choices in our everyday lives to help reduce harmful GHG emissions. Each small step counts, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle! NEVER GIVE UP!
