2014 Clearcut on Crown land, viewed in 2015 (Google Earth). The oft-cited figure of “5.7 million cubic meters/annum” for the Sustainable Harvest Level for Nova Scotia was formulated in 2016, well before the Lahey Recommendations (2018) and the NS Government’s commitment (2021) to 20% Protection by 2030 (currently just under 14% of the NS landscape is protected), before major nutrient limitations were quantified, before losses of hemlock, beech and ash trees associated with exotic pests and before the record wildfires of 2023 and 2025.
The number that is still being cited as the Sustainable Harvest Level for Nova Scotia, 5.7 million cubic meters/annum, dates from NS Government sources in 2016. It surely does not represent what’s available today, what could be sustained well into the future and what Nova Scotians wish to be available for harvesting, while allowing for other uses and values of our forested landscape such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, tourism, and local recreation/health and spiritually-oriented activities.
At the same time, there are pressures to (i) increase wood harvests to address our housing shortage and provide biomass for a plethora of emerging or proposed biotechnologies; (ii) rapidly increase HPF on Crown lands to reduce costs of harvesting due to recent implementation of the TRIAD and to compensate for new US Tariffs; and (iii) enable management of old forest in Protected Areas to, supposedly, reduce risk of wildfires.
A compilation of the biomass supply requirements for forest biomass-consuming entities in NS currently operating or being developed or seriously proposed/being considered (total 6,685,000 green tonnes per annum) suggests we are making commitments to supply forest biomass far beyond any sustainable level.
For the sake of re-establishing the trust and inclusiveness related to management of our Crown land forests that was gained by Nova Scotians at large though the Lahey process (2017-2018) and to provide credible numbers to the forest industry and investors, the government is urged to move quickly on its “Work [that] is underway to develop a new number based on the triad model”, and to follow the related recommendations of Bill Lahey. Read More
