The letter from The Save our Old Forest Association (SOOF) with 17 co-sponsors requests cessation of logging in areas that are prime candidates for protection by 2030.
View Original Letter
View expanded version with photos & links below: Continue reading
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).
The number that is 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. For the sake of Nova Scotians at large 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. Continue reading
By Nina Newington, Citizen Scientist and Lichen Camp Coordinator
and Lisa Proulx – Citizen Scientist
Nina Newington
Our new map of the 3900 hectare proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area
Click on images for larger versions
On Saturday September 28th, after 210 days camping on a logging road in Annapolis County, Citizen Scientists and our many allies came together to celebrate the achievements of Lichen Camp.
When we set up camp on March 2nd, there was an imminent threat of logging in the forest west of Goldsmith Lake. Our goal was to keep the forest standing while we researched and documented the biodiversity of the area, and to educate both people and government about its extraordinary conservation value.
The forests are still standing around the camp, and we have put Goldsmith Lake on the map, literally. Our new map of the 3900 hectare proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area shows not only the 77 species at risk occurrences we have identified to date, but also 20 stands of old-growth forest. Continue reading
Many Nova Scotians are feeling a lot of frustration about the slow movement of the NS Government on its otherwise commendable commitment to “20% Protection by 2030”.
A Case in point: the folks seeking protection for the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area, the lands all lying within NS Crown lands. They recently (Sep 17, 2024) made an appeal via a post on their Facebook page for citizens to support their concerns about yet another cut proposed/planned within the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area.
We asked for permission to reproduce the post on nsforestmatters.ca to support their cause, highlight the attributes of the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area, and to illustrate why we need to identify the remaining 20% lands ASAP. The request was graciously granted. So here it is: Continue reading
The Hammond River Angling Association (HRAA) is a non-profit environmental organization, whose mandate is “to protect and preserve the Hammond River watershed through education, conservation, and community interaction.”. The Hammond River is “a valuable tributary of the Wolastoq-Saint John River.”
Recently (Sep 19, 2024) the HRAA made a post on their Facebook page describing how they collected samples from various waters to test for glyphosate using an in-house rapid testing technique, and presented some of the results.
Given the many concerns and activities related to spraying of glyphosate on NS forests, I thought the technique, their approach to using it, their interpretation of the results and some of the ensuing discussion, all well and responsibly presented, would be of interest to readers of NS Forest Matters. So I asked permission to reproduce the post, the request graciously granted. – david p Continue reading
By Nina Newington,
On Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area
(Public Facebook Group) Sep 12, 2024
The Way In
The forest right around our camp is not old forest. It is 50 to 60 years old and as close to a softwood monoculture as the forestry industry of the day could make it. It is made up almost entirely of red spruce.
Here and there red maples have sprouted from the stumps left after the area was clearcut. The forest floor is carpeted with moss. Ever more fungi are popping up. In spring it was studded with wildflowers: bunchberry, blue-bead lily, lady slippers. Squirrels scold and Golden-crowned kinglets chitter in the treetops, as they have done since we first set up camp, back before the migratory birds came and went. Continue reading
How much wood can we harvest from NS forests without massive loss of forest cover as we had leading up to the Natural Resource Strategy Review (2008-2010) and the Lahey Review (2017-2018) of Forestry Practices in NS? Image from a post on nsforestnotes.ca Jan8, 2019
Click on image for larger version
Update Oct 6, 2024: My questions have landed back at Communications NS; latest word (Sep 24): they are “working on it”.
———————————————–
There seems to be some reticence by the Nova Scotia Government and the NS Forestry Economic Task Force to explain that figure.
I cited this figure in a post on nsforestmatters.ca on Sep 3, 2024:
The figure of “5.7 million cubic meters/yr” is cited as the Sustainable Harvest Level for NS, e.g., in the NS Forestry Economic Task Force’s Nova Scotia Forestry Sector Fact Sheet
Questions
(1) What is publicly available or can be shared about how that number was generated?… [ and 7 more related questions were asked]
I sent the 8 questions to contacts in NS NRR (Nova Scotia Government Department of Natural Resources & Renewables) on Aug 24; on Aug 27, 2024, I was directed to address the questions to “Communications Nova Scotia”.
On Sep 10, I was advised by Communications Nova Scotia: “That fact sheet was produced by the Nova Scotia Forestry Economic Task Force. They are in the best position to discuss how their reached their conclusions.” Continue reading
Post and related pages by David Patriquin
Dreams of a Biorefinery in Nova Scotia and related concepts (Bioplastics, Biofuel, and Bioeconomy…) go back to 2012, the closure of the Bowater-Mersey Mill, and to the birth and eventual passing of “Cellufuel”, courtesy of many taxpayer $.
But the dream didn’t die. Read More
Can Nova Scotia forests supply the biomass for a Biofuel Megaproject in Guysborough Co.,
AND… supply the biomass for another Bioeconomy Initiative in SW Nova Scotia,
AND supply wood for a new Pulp & Paper Mill (proposed) in SW Nova Scotia,
AND supply wood for the a new Mass Timber Company plant in East Hants, N.S.,
AND supply our ongoing Lumber Mills and our one ongoing Paper Mill (Port Hawkesbury Paper) and ongoing Forest Bioenergy Facilities and ongoing Chip Export Operations,
AND allow the depleted soils that cover about 60% of the forested landscape to recover,
AND “protect and enhance ecosystems and biodiversity as the overarching policy priority” in its application of the TRIAD to our Crown land forests?
The NS Forestry Economic Task Force seems think so, citing a figure of “5.7 million cubic meters/yr” as the Sustainable Harvest Level for NS. How was that figure generated, what are the assumptions? Those are questions for which we (the public stakeholders in Nova Scotia’s Crown land forests) could use some answers – View Post, 3 Sep2024
Click on image for a larger version
To comment on this post, please go to this post on Woods and Waters Nova Scotia (Public Facebook Page).
Adapted from posts by Adam Malcolm on Nova Scotia Species at Risk (public Facebook Page), with permission.
Wrote Adam on Sep 2, 2024:
In late 2021 the US Environmental Protection Agency released its final Biological Evaluation assessing risks to threatened and endangered species from labeled uses of glyphosate, an herbicide used in the Nova Scotian logging industry to kill broadleaf trees and shrubs that compete with spruce and fir saplings.
The evaluation found that glyphosate is likely to injure or kill 93% of the plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, including the monarch butterfly (Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk: misimijqanaw), Atlantic salmon (Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk: blamu) and Blanding’s turtle (protection pending), among hundreds of others. The report also found that glyphosate adversely modifies critical habitat for 759 endangered species, or 96% of all species for which critical habitat has been designated in the US. Continue reading
Sketch shows prominence of highly acidic, calcium-deficient/high aluminum forest soils in Nova Scotia. Sketch after Keys et al. (2016), Fig 3. More about it here. Could such conditions affect the feasibility of a new paper mill in Queens Co.?
Recently I viewed an e-mail from a Paper Excellence official, addressed (apparently) to a set of “forestry sector stakeholders”, in which the focus topics for an upcoming meeting to be held in Queens Co in early September are described, and inviting addressees to share their thoughts, suggest topics for future meetings etc.
The focus topics included, amongst others, considerations related to air emissions and effluents, and forestry-related modelling assumptions.
These topics are surely of interest and have impacts outside of the forestry sector per se. Continue reading
