NAVIGATION. This page is a subpage of In the News – Climate & Biodiversity on the website Nova Scotia Forest Matters (www.nsforestmatters.ca). This Rough Transcript is also referenced on the In the News – Wildfire/Extreme Weather
What do forest protections look like now? (Audio)
Information Morning – NS with Portia Clark
Dec 5, 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.”
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT
CBC: Some people who are trying to get an ecologically rich forest are sounding the alarm. They have seen flagging tape go up around tree trunks in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area in Annapolis county and they believe logging will soon follow. In response, members of the group Save Our Old Forests have set up a campsite along a logging Rd. going into the area. Nina Newington is president of the group.
NN: We are near Corbett Lake in Annapolis county on the edge of the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area [that] we are trying to protect. ‘Couple weeks ago we found pink flagging tape around the boundaries of a cut block right in this forest that we’ve been working to protect.
It’s also around Species-at-Risk likens we found and their protective buffers, but we know this means that logging is likely, that it’s gonna go ahead in spite of all our best efforts to protect this area
We set up Camp Now which stands for “need our wilderness” or possibly need our wilderness-es” and really that’s what it sounds like. We need to get these areas protected. The government committed to protecting 20% and they’ve made miniscule progress, less than half a percent in the last four years and it needs to happen.
We need protected areas. We are here to protect the forest, we’re here to speak for the animals, for the creatures that depend on this forest and we’ll see what happens.
But you know, there is a new amendment to the Crown Land Act in the Protecting Nova Scotians Act that might or might not apply to us. They are incredibly vague and they have huge penalties. So they’re quite intimidating but it’s really not clear whether they will apply it to us or not.
CBC: That’s Nina Newington with the group Save Our Old Forests. She was speaking to us from her tents along a logging Rd. in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area Donna Crosland keeps a close eye on logging activity on Crown land throughout Nova Scotia. She’s a retired biologist with Parks Canada, a forest ecologistand a long-term advocate of sustainable forestry.
Donna, good morning… as you heard Nina say… this is the first time that we know of that a group has set up a protest on Crown land since that omnibus bill 127 passed into law which makes it illegal to impede access to Crown land roads and Nina’s a little unclear on what that means exactly. Is it clear in your mind?
DC: It is not clear in my mind. I’ve been watching this for some time now and I certainly empathize with groups like the Citizen Scientists and Save Our Old Forests. They’ve been watching the government chisel away at these areas that are clearly biologically rich and they’ve gone and done all this work finding Old Growth forest stands that weren’t found before, weren’t marked on the map and now logging just progressives anyway.
And this is happening in in so many of the citizen scientists proposed or the citizen-proposed Protected Areas around Nova Scotia so they are starting to protest.
CBC: right in so pardon me, with Nina and others there, they set up that tent. Are you concerned that they could be arrested or that this law could be enforced even though they’re not blocking a road?.
DC: I am concerned yes, and it says you know, this new amendment to the Crown Lands Act, says that “to block, obstruct the use of, or impede access to forest access roads” but then there’s also a reference to public safety.
And so I I don’t know if their tent was erected and then a logging operation moves in, if they can suddenly say “well your safety is in jeopardy so we’re we’re seizing your tent” and, you know, it’s just very vague and very intimidating. This government has gone from a tone of collaboration with the Nova Scotia Collaborative Protected Areas Strategy, this wonderful collaborative tone, to this tone of intimidation. under the Protecting Nova Scotia Nova Scotian’s Act.
CBC: The governments and the Province also has a goal of protecting land and water and set that at 20% of land and water by 2030, the province committed to protect the 1st 15% by the end of March of next year as I understand. How well do you think we’re doing in meeting our goals?
DC: I think the government has changed course. it’s like premier Houston’s falling in with the wrong crowd, it suddenly mines and forestry I think are the voices he listens to, everything else is closed. And so will probably have to give back millions.
I mean we got over just over $28 million to spend over three years from the federal government under the Canada Nova Scotia Nature Agreement and so we were well on our way, we had funding, we had done the research, we know that the staff with the Environment and Climate Change Protected Areas branch, they were likely working very hard to move this forward.
And it’s completely stalled and so I don’t think with the change in tone that we’re seeing that this government has any intention now of following through. So we’ll probably have to give back millions.
And why? So the forest industry can continue its relentless assault, so we can burn biomass or put in uranium mines? – this is this is crazy. .. we just lost 85 square kilometers roughly with the Long Lake fire at West Dalhousie.
So just down the road is the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area that wants to protect a mere 4 square kilometers. So we’ve lost 85 square kilometers and we can’t set aside 4 square kilometers of woods that we know is diverse and deserves protection?, ‘has just as many features as any other protected area that we have in Nova Scotia?…. this is just mean spirited.
CBC Does the the loss as you mentioned, 85 square kilometers in the Long lake Fire in the West Dalhousie area, does that put the Goldsmith Lake Area into a new life almost because there is that loss so close by and in the same area?
DC: That’s a that’s a very smart question Portia and one that I wish our government would ask. … I mean we’ve been asking them and re-asking them to do landscape-level-planning, thta but when you manage forest, you should look at the entire landscape at watersheds and so forth and they don’t. They’re still planning one stand at a time and so when you have that much fire such as occurred where are the wildlife supposed to go when their homes have burned to the ground?
And it’s not just the wildlife. People need old forest too… k when you drive through West Dalhousie now and see all the forests burned all around the homes. We need these forests standing for practical reasons, to store carbon and to soak up those heavy rains.
But we need them for our own peace, we need them for own healing and there couldn’t be a sharper contrast between that green shade of the old forest of the proposed Goldsmith lake wilderness area and those charred remains from those cutovers where the very soil itself is destroyed.
CBC: Donna, as we heard another previous half hour, some of the forest, the trees in that area that burned will be recovered and used in timber operations or in other purposes, that we use our Nova Scotia wood for that may buy some more time for that area, but that remains to be seen. Donna thank you for speaking with us this morning.
DC: Yes and I would have to say that though that postfire landscape needs every single tree to make soil to restore that forest now, so I’m not aware of your broadcast with the recovery, but yes the forest, the burnt forest needs its trees now to make organic soil. So thank you so much thank you again for speaking with us.
CBC: Take care Donna.That was Donna Crossland, retired biologist with Parks Canada, a forest ecologist and long-term advocate of sustainable forestry. We reached her at home in Kings County, that’s 20 minutes from Corbett Lake.