Post by David Patriquin
Map of the 3900 hectare proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area View Post Oct 1, 2024 for details.
Citizens have 40 days and 40 nights to comment on the proposed harvest but only comments specific to the site will be answered; in the meantime it’s not clear whether the parcel in question will remain in the Ecological Matrix or will become a High Production Forestry site or will eventually become part of the Conservation Zone. The venue by which citizens were to be informed and involved in long term planning, the Forestry EA (recommended by Lahey), now seems simply to have been dropped, and it’s not clear whether there is any ongoing landscape level planning for biodiversity conservation at NRR.
When I received the “New-Crown Land Harvest Plans” notice today (Nov 4, 2024) and saw 9 parcels totaling 345.65 ha listed for Annapolis Co., I wondered whether those would include at least one within the citizen-proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (re Open letter to Nova Scotia Premier Houston requesting cessation of logging in areas that are prime candidates for protection – post on this website Oct 17, 2024).
Indeed that is the case:
Screen captures of the citizen proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area & Environs from (i) Top Left, the Harvest Plan Map Viewer – it shows the boundaries for Parcel AP022053, identified as in the Ecological Matrix zone; (ii) Bottom Left, the High Production Forest Zone Potential Sites Viewer – it shows the same parcel identified as a potential HPF (High Production Forestry) site; (iii) Top Right and (iv) Bottom Right, the Nova Scotia Landscape Map Viewer; Top Right shows Average Stand Height, Lower Right shows Leading Forest Species.
Click on image for larger version.
It’s curious that the parcel in question is shown as lying within the Ecological Matrix, and is also identified as a potential HPF (High Production Forestry) site. At the same time, this government has committed to 20% Protection by 2030, but is proceeding in that direction at snail pace.
So I have to wonder what IS the intention of Nova Scotia Dept. of Natural Resources and Renewables in regard to this parcel. Is it
– to retain it within the Ecological Matrix, or
– to remove the older higher volume trees now and then turn it over to HPF, or
– to remove the older higher volume trees now and eventually let it become part of a Protected Area (re the NS Government’s commitment to 20% Protected Area by 2030)?
No one outside of government seems to know the intentions. The venue by which citizens were to be informed and involved in long term planning, the Forestry EA (recommended by Lahey), now seems simply to have been dropped, the Minister’s statement of Apr 3, 2023 apparently notwithstanding.*
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*“HON. TORY RUSHTON: One of our next steps is to consult on the draft forest stewardship planning guide. This guide will provide licensees with the direction for the 20-year management plans. Those plans will ultimately be subject to an environmental assessment.” – NS Legislature, COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY, APRIL 3, 2023
Landscape Level Planning at NRR
At best, what we are seeing at NRR, at least from the outside, is some level of ongoing “landscape-level planning” for wood supply, but little or none ongoing for biodiversity conservation (e.g., along the lines of HRM’s Green Network Plan). Details of the wood supply planning are not shared publicly beyond the 40-days-for-comment notices, and the estimates of the “Sustainable Wood Supply” that are cited publicly date from 2016 (Post, Oct 16, 2024).
There is a webpage on Landscape Planning on the “old” (not Beta) website which cites “landscape level, ecosystem based planning as a central goal”, but it appears not to have been updated since 2020.
There was at one time reference to “a landscape planning pilot project to identify and develop options for linking prescriptions made at the stand level and broader landscape level forest management objectives” apparently initiated in collaboration with Port Hawkesbury Paper circa 2019 (view post on nsforestnotes.ca Mar 16, 2020). Was it completed? Is it ongoing? We simply don’t know.
At one point it appeared that Biodiversity Landscape Planning for Nova Scotia was being developed as part of the L&F Environmental Assessment Project (view posts on nsforestnotes.ca 16Jun2020) but, as mentioned above, the EA now seems to have been shelved.
So I am left wondering, is what we are left with something akin to “log the best and leave the rest”, all under the guise of NRR’s version of Ecological Forestry?
Perhaps the answer will be forthcoming in 2028 from the five year project to assess how the government’s implementation of the Triad/Ecological Forestry is affecting “the economy, carbon sequestration and recreation” which was launched in 2023; or possibly sooner in a new State of the Forest Report which is presumably underway (the last one was issued in 2016).
In the meantime, NRR/Communications Nova Scotia, we could sure use some updates on the state of Biodiversity Landscape Planning at NRR.
Related
– Why was the Port Hawkesbury Paper FULA not preceded by an EA or equivalent process?
Post on versicolor.ca/nstriad, Feb 11, 2023
– Environmental Assessment
Page on nsforestnotes.ca about the forest EA, posted dec 9, 2021, last modified June 4, 2022
– Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area proposal
Page on this website
– Plans for harvesting within the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area (IRWA) continue
Post on this website Sep 23, 2024
– Open letter to Nova Scotia Premier Houston requesting cessation of logging in areas that are prime candidates for protection
Page on this website, posted Oct 17, 2024
– Nova Scotia Government responds to Questions about the Sustainable Forest Harvest Level
Post on this website, posted Oct 16, 2024
ON BIODIVERSITY LANDSCAPE PLANNING IN NS
– Landscape Planning
Page on NRR website. Not listed there is this document: NOVA SCOTIA Ecological Landscape Analysis, by Ecodistrict (2023 Update) “The 2023 ELA Update supplements previous ELA documents (produced in 2015 and 2019). It provides updates to figures and tables of the Key Indicator measures used to describe and assess landscapes in Nova Scotia.” Ecological Landscape Analysis is not the same as “Landscape Biodiversity Planning”, e.g., there is no mention of “connectivity”; there are two references to “Valley Corridors” but not otherwise to “wildlife corridors”.
– A Field Guide to Forest Biodiversity Stewardship
Compiled by Peter Neily and Glen J. Parsons Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, Renewable Resources Branch, 2017. I am a big fan of this this guide “designed as a stewardship tool primarily for forest harvesters, woodland managers, and private woodland owners”; it includes “Stewardship Actions” to provide corridors for wildlife movement.
– Need for Biodiversity Landscape Planning before finalizing HPF and Ecological Matrix components of the Triad, and for caution in selection of HPF sites in acid-stressed watersheds
A response to the High Production Forestry Phase 1 – Discussion Paper From the Conservation Committee of the Halifax Field Naturalists
– Landscape-level “Log the best and leave the rest” on Nova Scotia’s Crown land forests
Post on nsforestnotes.ca 10Jan 2021
– Biodiversity Landscape Planning for Nova Scotia is being developed as part of the L&F Environmental Assessment Project
Post on nsforestnotes.ca 16jun2020
– Why we need a Precautionary Biodiversity Landscape Plan for Nova Scotia
Post on nsforestnotes.ca 16Mar2020
