yes,the pine mod is tricky and been ongoing study. Tuggistar took what i was woring with and changed it more.
you need the Crystal Cliff's mod as a patch.this bridges the pine mod and RKEC together. using both these together above the RKEC works with vanilla starts. if you ran RED's special starts,you have to disable the pine. you can try to move the pine mod below the RKEC, test to be sure this works.
if you use the flora patch with the pine and Crystal Cliff's, place the Crystal cliff mod between the flora and pine. with all 3 above the RKEC, everything should work and all starts as well. TUGGISTAR came up with this new change.
new flora patch< this adds the items including trapping to maps>
crystal cliffs <this patches the mods>
pine mod
RKEC or DS IND etc
note: not all food will be collected with the clear food tool, there are 2 of these now, run both over an area will give different foods. the laborers are educated via the pine and can collect eggs and clear traps.