Camp NOW – Day 32
Happy New Year!
It’s been a month since we set up Camp NOW. Need Our Wilderness. Seems like a good moment to sum up why we’re camping beside a logging road in the snow…
Camp NOW – Day 32
Happy New Year!
It’s been a month since we set up Camp NOW. Need Our Wilderness. Seems like a good moment to sum up why we’re camping beside a logging road in the snow…
We all need to work together. In the end, the well-being of our communities and the natural world depend on trust and good will, as do markets.
Post/Page on Nova Scotia Forest Matters
By David Patriquin
CONTENTS
The WestFor 12-month Plans
On Dec 8, 2025, Nova Scotia Forestry Maps provided subscribers of Harvest Operation Maps an announcement/opportunity-for-comment on proposed harvests of 76 parcels/5642 ha of Crown Lands.
*These notices are not posted or archived on the NS Gov website. so you have be a subscriber to view them. More recent ones are available on NSFM.

“Camp NOW occupies the exact same spot as this year’s Lichen Camp”. Photo from the Lichen Camp,
UPDATE: What do forest protections look like now? CBC Information Morning with Portia Clark, Fri Dec 6, 2025. “The flagging tape that signals future logging is up in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. Portia talks with a forest ecologist who says it’s more important than ever to save this rich ecosystem.” Interviews with Nina Newington (on site at Camp NOW) and forest ecologist Donna Crossland. View NSFM’s Rough Transcript.
———–
Media Release
From Save Our Old Forests, Dec 4, 2025
For Immediate Release
Images inserted by NSFM
Camp NOW protests failure to protect wilderness areas
Camp N.O.W. – Need Our Wilderness – was set up on November 30th on Crown land in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area in Annapolis County by Save Our Old Forests’ president Nina Newington and others who have been working to get the area permanently protected since 2022. Camp NOW is protesting the government’s failure to protect the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area or any other new Wilderness Areas on public lands. Progress towards protecting 20% of Nova Scotia’s lands and waters by 2030 has been miniscule, less than half a percent since the commitment was included in the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act in 2021. Instead, DNR is approving logging in citizen-proposed Wilderness Areas including Goldsmith Lake, Beals Brook, Ingram River and Chain Lakes. Continue reading
Just received from Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova Scotia: the latest version of their map showing confirmed SAR (Species-at-Risk, now 121 in total) and now protected OGF (Old Growth Forest) stands (31).
Links to more info. & context:
– An Updated Proposal to Protect the Goldsmith Lake area, contributing to the 20% target
Prepared by Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova Scotia. May 22, 2024. 23 pages
– 20% Protection by 2030
Page on this website (nsforestmatters.ca) Continue reading
This is the text of Nina Newington’s comments to participants at the Shoulder to Shoulder, We are All Treaty People Rally yesterday:
“Wela’lioq to Glenda Junta and Michelle Paul for extending the invitation to create this rally; to Elder – Doctor – Albert Marshall for sharing his wisdom; to the land defenders at Hunters Mountain who inspired us all to come together in solidarity.
“I’ve been on Hunter’s Mountain. I’ve seen the clearcuts. I’ve seen the destruction. I’ve driven too many logging roads across this province. I know how little is left of our Wabanaki forests, how much has been taken from these unceded lands over decades of brutal extraction. I know how much it matters to protect what is left for us humans, yes, but also for all our relations, for salmon and dragonflies, turtles and moose, black ash and the tiniest lichens. Without healthy forests, there is no livable planet for future generations. Continue reading

Received from Nina Newington while attending the rally with a group from the Annapolis Valley/SOOF:
“A few photos from today, 450-500 people, good speakers, drummers, spirits…“View more
UPDATE NOV 17, 2021: From the notice sent to subscribers from Forestry Maps, received today (bolding inserted): Continue reading
If you live, work, play, or pray in Nova Scotia, we want you there. We want to hear your voices!
— Mi’kmaw land defenders Michelle Paul and Glenda Junta
Bring your community banners, signs, flags and regalia. Bring your drums, songs and prayers.
“Nature has rights; humans have responsibilities.” – Dr./Elder Albert Marshall
And a comment on ForestNS’s assertion that we are “increasing wildfire risk by protecting too much land”.
Nature Nova Scotia has posted a comprehensive update on where we stand today on Protected Areas in Nova Scotia, noting
The province stopped designating new protected areas in 2024, leaving many parcels in the 2013 Parks and Protected Areas Plan unprotected. As of summer 2025, Nova Scotia is sitting at just 13.5% protected lands, less than 4 years away from the 2030 deadline for protecting 20%.”
The post opens with a photo of Owls Head, describing the background to the secretive delisting [by the Liberal Gov of the day] of Owls Head Provincial Park in 2020 revealed by investigative reporting by CBC journalist Michael Gorman. Under a section on “Misinformation and Conflicting Interests”, NatureNS reminds us how that factored into election of the PCs in 2021. Continue reading
I took these photos yesterday on the Etu’qamikejk Trail in thanksgiving for and in celebration of the beauty, bounty and solace afforded by our Wabanaki-Acadian Forest – david p
Click on images for larger versions Continue reading