Introduction:
How would you like to help fix a serious problem in Muskoka’s forests and lakes at no cost to you, while helping to recycle and re-purpose a waste you now generate in your home?

Sound too good to be true? It is not.

We are talking about using ash from your wood stove or fireplace to help solve the calcium decline problem in Muskoka. Scientists call this problem “ecological osteoporosis”, and by analogy to osteoporosis in people, the issue is critical losses in calcium from forest soils and lakes, enough losses that calcium-rich plants and animals are suffering and, in some cases, have disappeared.

The discovery of how to make fire to burn wood is one of mankind’s greatest inventions, and the use of wood fires for cooking and heating likely pre-dates human civilization, going back to Neanderthal times. First Nations around the world have used fire to manage their landscapes for untold millennia, and in Muskoka, we still burn wood for heating, cooking, land clearing, and entertainment.

In this guide you will learn how we can use the leftover waste from your wood burning to help solve ecological osteoporosis in Muskoka. Join your neighbours and become a local environmental hero, helping the Friends of the Muskoka Watershed solve the environmental osteoporosis problem in Muskoka.

Read on please, to learn how your help will protect and restore the Muskoka we all love from the scourge of calcium decline.