Jan 9, 2025:
– Is the province favouring forestry over conservation? (Audio 8 min)
CBC Info AM with Portia Clark “Hear why the president of Save Our Old Forests has been filing access to information requests to try to find out about old growth forest stands in Annapolis County. Nina Newington talks about seeing a disconnect between what the government knows and what it’s posting publicly.”
Rough Transcript
PC: People who want to see an area in Annapolis valley protecfed say so far with the province on that.
The proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness area is home to old growth forests and two rare plants and lichens and birds and animals.
Some of those species are in the process of local extinction.
Nina Newington is the president of Save Our Old Forests and a member of the Citizen Scientists of southwest Nova Scotia.
The groups are concerned about the province’s delay in protecting the area and with its lack of communication with the public.
Newington submitted 5 access to information requests to Nova scotia’s department of natural resources and renewables to try to find out more
Good morning Nina
NN: Good morning Portia
PC: I’m curious to hear what you found I will get to that in a moment, but first this proposed Goldsmith lake wilderness area, it’s roughly 39 square kilometers or 3900 hectares; what is it like there? Can you describe it?
NN: In Annapolis county, Goldsmith lake itself is extraordinary.
It’s pristine, it’s never been damned for hydropower, deep clear water, wild trout there and around it is an amazing array of old growth forest and old forest.
PC: and you’ve also seen some pretty interesting wildlife. I gather in the area, you found eight different species at risk there. What have you identified?
NN: well bird, [we] identified olive sided flycatcher and rusty Blackbird, Common Nighthawk and can Chimney Swifts. I didn’t see it, but somebody else saw a pine marten.
And then of course there is lichens and there is black ash
PC: and one of the species of lichen I gather you spotted there is called the frosted glass whiskers lichen, him pretty cool name – what’s special about this lichen, Nina?
NN: I love that name. it’s a little tiny lich and that’s an old growth indicator, meaning that it really only grows in old growth and old forest that needs very undisturbed… sort of shady moist forest habitat, those are the habitats that support all sorts of other kinds of life as well.
So it’s a “flag” saying “hey this is an area that’s really important to conserve”.
PC: yeah OK so this lichen, it doesn’t lie so to speak, but also the department of natural resource and renewables has also publicly identified old growth forests in the Goldsmith lake area.
How much old growth forests were you sure about Nina before you submitted your Freedom of Information request?
NN: so we knew there was 7 stands but we did not know that DNR had identified another 14
PC: and you found this out or confirmed it through Freedom of Information requests?.
NN: yes we haven’t been able to get those kind of confirmations from contacting DNR directly, so I ended up deciding that we needed to put in some of these Freedom of Information requests
But yes there are 14 different stands and you know some of these are really remarkable., and were identified, gosh almost a year and a half ago.
There’s a stand right by the lake that is 9 hectares which is quite big for an old growth stand in Nova Scotia and it’s, the trees came in as having an average age, all the ones they sampled, as over 250 years old
PC: And what’s supposed to happen when an old growth forest stand is identified by the province I mean can there be a delay between that identification and then it’s showing up on the map?
NN: There is a process that the old growth forest coordinator goes through of checking it out, and going through his database, and you know once all of that is done, then it’s really supposed to be a rubber stamp to put it up to the senior management, and it gets added to that public map.
And that’s kind of where the stall out has happened,
The Freedom of Information requests showed that the whole chunk of these stands were put forward to senior management in July and then really nothing happened.
Another e-mail within the department says oh nothing iss happening and that was September and here we are now it’s January and still nothing has happened
And you know, the policy actually says that the data is supposed to be kept up to date and made available to the public.
So I think they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
PC: has there been anything in your Freedom of Information results Nina that indicates why there might be this delay with the department of natural resources renewables to add these to the provinces map and to consequently protect them?
NN: No lots of things get redacted, so there may be, you know, discussions that we don’t get to see even with the Freedom of Information request.
It’s really actually quite baffling.
I think if you saw a map, if they were all on that map and you saw a ring of these stands all the way around Goldsmith Smith lake, it would make such a strong case for protecting the area
So it’s quite frustrating that that isn’t being made public.
So I’m sure you know this the province put into law a target of protecting 20% of Nova Scotia by 2030
And we are not making speedy progress.
it was we had 13% protected when that law went in at the end of 2021 and we don’t even have 14% at the beginning of 2025
PC: I gather the other thing you found in these foipop results is that an area that your group or you had been pushing to get protected years ago is back on a logging company radar.
can you tell us more about that?
NN: sure so this is also within the Goldsmith Lake wilderness area, it’s further to the east, it’s a peninsula between Corbett and Dalhousie Lakes.
This is a peninsula of old to old growth-forests.
So what I discovered in the most recent Freedom of Information request was that some zombie harvest plans had resurfaced.
They are not visible on the public harvest plan map viewer where you can see the old harvest plans; these are plans that the last time there was a formal public chance to comment on them was over 10 years ago.
This is the area that back in 2019 local residents including me set up a camp to stop the logging of this old forest.
It’s yellow Birch and sugar Maple, red Maple.
It’s a really beautiful area, it’s an area where we’ve now found more of those frosted glass whiskers that are old forest indicators..
It was very alarming to see without any kind of public knowledge
I mean I think really if we didn’t have this Freedom of Information request, you know they be gearing up to be right in there and cutting
And gosh it’s it’s frustrating. it should be such a shoe-in for protection and instead it feels as though DNR is trying to nibble away at it, and cut well they can before it gets protected.
PC: what’s your hope in sharing the information that you’ve been able to glean together with these foipops by sharing that publicly in terms of you know putting pressure or demanding some change of course from the government on this?
NN: DNR is supposed to be working with the Department of Environment and the public according to the strategy the government itself put out a year ago to get to that 20%
You know it really isn’t DNR’s job anymore to manage crown lands and forestry.
That changed, the law changed, they should be working with us, with Environment.
The areas like Goldsmith that the public has put forward and done this documentation full, they should be nominated as areas for Environment to assess for protection
While they get to go through that process, there should be a pause on any logging and road- building in those areas
So that’s really what we would like to see is for DNR to start cooperating, stop acting in a way that seems to be just trying to help the forestry industrt to get what it can while it can.
PC: thank you for speaking with us this morning about what you’ve been able to find out about those old growth forests in the Goldsmith Lake area
‘appreciate your time this morning
NN: thank you so much for your interest Portia much appreciated..
PC: And Nina Newington is the president of Save our Old Forests and a member of the Citizen Scientists of southwest Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables has turned down our request to respond to this interview.