Camp Now

Navigation: This page is a subpage of The Camps, a top-level page on the blog/website Nova Scotia Forest Matters (nsforestmatters.ca)

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Intro: “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. Read more

Listen to interview with Nina Newington on Todd Veinot Show, Dec 9, 2025. Todd V asks: Explain the theory behind this camp? Why are Old Growth forests important? Whats the difference between an Old Growth forest and an old forest? Regarding carbon capture, whats the difference between a 30 year old forest and an old forest? Can there be a balance between those that want to log and those that want to protect? The government changed laws on these kind of protests this year – any concern that they might come and shut you down? What would get you out of out of the tent tomorrow? On the last question Nina replies “Well if the government said yes we’re gonna get Environment to do the formal review of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness area so that we’re working towards protecting it and in the meantime will put a freeze on the harvests we have planned for this area that would do it…”

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POSTS FROM CAMP NOW
Most recent at top.

These posts are copies of the original posts on Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (Public Facebook Group)

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Camp Now Day 90
by Nina Newington, Feb 28, 2026

There’s a lot going on out in the human world. The animals at camp are deciding whether to take a trip into the city.

They watch a video Spider sent. It was Fly that took the footage, but Spider packaged it.

A bald, middle-aged white man is speaking. Three other middle-aged white men are listening. They have more hair.

‘Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to make it a legal commitment, but it sounded good.’ The Minister sits up straighter, takes a deep breath and declaims:
‘In 2021, our government committed to protecting 20 per cent of Nova Scotia’s land and water by 2030. Achieving this goal is so important that we legislated it in the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act.’

He looks around at the other men.

‘We are now pleased to present the new Collaborative Protected Areas Strategy for Nova Scotia, which sets the direction to achieve this conservation goal.’

‘The federal government gave us $28.5 million to help us meet our conservation goal.’

The three men stare at him.

‘Okay, that was back in 2023. The thing is, to get the money we had to agree to protect 15% by 2026. I mean, we’ve made progress. We started at just 13.45%. By the beginning of this month, we were at 13.77%. That’s…’

He stares up at the ceiling, directly at Fly’s eyes. He is sweating slightly.

‘Point three two percent,’ says Forestry, ‘you’ve taken from logging.’

‘And mining,’ says Mining.

‘Now the Special Interests are running around, whining and wringing their hands and telling people we’re going to have to give back that money, and we’ve got this big deficit which isn’t our fault, but it’s not going to look good if we have to give back millions.’ The Minister stops and looks at the three men. ‘What should we do?’

Mining and Forestry look at each other then at the Communications Director.

‘We already gave you a to do list,’ says the Director. ‘You’re only halfway through it.’

The Minister squares his shoulders. ‘We’ve got to protect something. So it looks like we’re going to hit 15%. Then maybe we can forget the whole stupid idea.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ says Forestry, ‘we’ve been telling you for years. Protect the places we can’t cut. Do I have to spell it out for you? Steep slopes. Places too wet for our machinery. Those 20m buffers along streams. Declare those areas protected.’

The Minister looks at the Director.

‘OECMs,’ says the Director.

‘What?’

‘Other Effective Conservation Measures. They’re in that Collaborative Protected Areas Strategy booklet the communications department put out before we got rid of them.’

‘The one the Special Interests keep telling people to read because it describes the kinds of areas that should be protected?’

‘Yeah, yeah, but you know what? Biodiversity has six syllables. Count them. Bi-o-di-ver-si-ty. Who reads that shit?’

The Minister gets to the thumb on his other hand and nods. ‘So we count all the areas where you can’t cut. How far does that get us?’

’14.55%,’ says the Director.

‘That’s not even…’ The Minister looks up at the ceiling. ‘15%’

‘No, but it’s close.’

‘We only have till March 31st.’ Sweat is running down his forehead.

‘Nah. End of the year,’ says the Director.

‘And the federal government will accept them? I mean they will count, right, towards the total?’

Forestry and Mining nod.

The Director says, ‘Sure, and if they don’t, well, then the Feds are fucking us over, stealing our money.’

The Minister nods. ‘14.55%,’ he says. ‘It sounds like 15% already.’ He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his forehead.

The camera fades to white.
‘It’s a wrap,’ says Spider.

‘Well?’ says Coyote.
‘Heard there’s a bus going,’ says Bear.
‘And drumming and dancing, says Marten.
‘Our relations will be there,’ says Owl.
‘I’ll watch the camp,’ says Otter.

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Camp Now Day 82
by Nina Newington

I was going to write a cheery post about the new warmth in the February sun; the joy of shadows on snow; the steady stream of visitors to camp, travelling from near and far to drink tea and talk and walk or ski.

But then came this in the Halifax Examiner: ‘News of massive changes to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff landed in an email today, according to a source who asked for anonymity to protect his career.

The source describes the changes and sackings as “shock and awe,” and compares them to Elon Musk’s dramatic and vicious slashing of the United States’ public service by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last year.

The entire wildlife division in DNR is gone, replaced by something called “integrated resources planning,” which will be inside a new “Land Strategy and Planning Branch.” (…)

Sources also tell the Examiner that managers who were focussed on actual forest health – managers of biodiversity, of ecosystems and habitats, and the head of the wildlife division – were sacked.”

A member of what was the wildlife division spoke to CBC today:

“This is completely devastating to all of the work that the wildlife division was doing. We will not be able to function as an entity moving forward,” the source said.
The layoffs amount to the loss of “a massive amount of information” that will take years to recover and “will be completely devastating to conservation in Nova Scotia,” they said.
“There is no one left to protect wildlife in Nova Scotia.”

The managers in the Wildlife Division led small teams with specific missions:
-Understand and protect the biodiversity of Nova Scotia.
-Understand and protect the unique ecosystems and habitats in Nova Scotia,
-Maintain the health of game and non-game populations of wildlife in Nova Scotia.

They had their own office in Kentville where they were meant to do science-based work, independent of industry and of the other divisions of DNR. They had their own division head. He has been fired too. The heads of the other two DNR divisions — Forestry and Geoscience & Mines — remain.

As my Day 79 post made clear, the upper reaches of DNR frequently undermined, twisted or corrupted the work of the Wildlife Division. They ignored, for example, a wildlife biologist’s report that she had been unable to place cameras so they had a good view of a possible endangered Chimney swift nest tree. Instead, they used the fact that the cameras had not captured any images of the birds as proof that the tree was not a nest tree. Nothing to see here.

The biologist did her job. She told the truth. She may never have seen what senior staff at DNR made of that truth.

It is important not to attack the people who are doing their best to do an important job – such as protecting biodiversity – within an unsupportive institution. The citizen scientists have reported hundreds of species at risk identifications. Until recently we always got a response from Dr. Donna Hurlburt, Ph.D., the Manager of Biodiversity within the Wildlife Division, thanking us for our work and acknowledging receipt of the information. This information was shared promptly with the Forestry Division and the required buffers were removed from the relevant harvest plans. The harvest plans were duly amended. Freedom of Information requests allowed us to track this process. (A recent change to this process is making it harder to track, but that’s for another day.)

Donna Hurlburt was fired yesterday. She posted about this last night on Facebook.
But the post I want to quote here is from February 9th:

‘Been thinking a lot about my experiences as a Mi’kmaw woman employed in government – natural resources management, at that. Good thing I came from strong resilient stock and my connections to the land and waters run deep. My moral compass sure is taking a beating as it tries to stay on its path. Doing my best to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, but it sure is a slog.’

I have deep respect and admiration for the woman who took on this work. In so many dimensions it must have been hard. Now more than ever we need to support each other, all those who are trying our best “to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

The forces of greed and ignorance are powerful and desperately short-sighted. We need everyone, whether you are camping by a logging road or still working in a government department, in academia or a non-profit or a corporation, or sitting at home, wondering what to do. Shoulder to shoulder, Mi’kmaq and settlers, we can resist the destruction of the Earth and work for a world where we take care of each other, human and other than human. We are all in the same boat. Those of us who know it must show it.
Msit No’kmaq

First step. Call your MLA and object. Numbers of calls count. No need for a long message.
Second step. Save the date: March 2nd at noon outside the legislature in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. Shoulder to Shoulder: We Are All Treaty People returns.

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Camp NOW – Day 79
Nina Newington, Feb 18, 2026

Near the end of the Day 72 post I wrote, “It is only because of an extraordinary combination of dumb luck, industry error, plus passion and diligence on the part of ordinary people that most of the old and old growth forest on the Corbett peninsula is still standing.” I keep thinking about the heart-felt hard work of Bev Wigney, Scott Leslie and so many others in that crucial period in 2018 and 2019.

Seven years on, it is clear that the 6th Mass Extinction is upon us. It matters more than ever to protect reservoirs of biodiversity wherever we can. Nobody knows which areas will survive the consequences of climate breakdown. In the face of terrible uncertainty, we can only do what we can. But doing what we can is essential.

Looking back through documents received as part of a Freedom of Information request that I filed regarding the Corbett peninsula and DNR’s activities there, I came across several beautiful letters making the case for not logging this area.

The one shown in the screenshot, dated June 12, 2019 and addressed to then Premier and Annapolis County MLA, Stephen McNeil, opens: “I’ve just received several photos – of which this is one – of what is, in all probability, the actual nest site for the Species-At-Risk Chimney Swifts that we have been seeing almost continuously at Corbett-Dalhousie Lake for over a week.”

Read the whole letter. It pulls together a lot of information to support the identification of an actual Chimney Swift nest site. And it makes the point that protecting endangered species is a legal obligation for the government. It is not up to industry or government to decide on some ‘balance’ between industry’s interests and the interests of wildlife.

The letter was passed on to DNR. What did they do with it? Well, check out the screenshot of the email chain. The earliest email is at the bottom. DNR’s Integrated Resource Management biologist at the time, Sarah Spencer, decided to go and set up a couple of cameras at the possible nest site. This she did on July 2nd, braving those dangerous nature lovers who might still be roaming the forest. The result?

I visited the site yesterday. I set up a couple of cameras but there really was no good spot to get a view of the crown of the tree.

And what did her DNR bosses do with this information?

A couple of weeks later they came up with an Advice/Recommendation to the Minister document stating, among other things:

Department staff conducted a site investigation for a potential chimney swift roost site using trail cameras near the cavity tree that was identified as a possible site the Chimney swifts were utilizing. No Chimney swifts were captured by the cameras.

They then recommended that the hold that had been put on the harvest be lifted so that logging could proceed in the fall.

Fortunately that didn’t happen, but not for lack of trying by DNR.

This exact same statement has been used ever since by DNR in advice and briefing notes to the Minister regarding the Corbett peninsula. It surfaced yet again in the September 6, 2024 Decision Request asking the Minister, once again, to lift the hold on the Corbett peninsula harvest plans. This time the Minister agreed.

Ministers rely on accurate information from staff in their department. But in the case of DNR, they don’t get it. In their communications to the Minister of the day, DNR staff repeat statements that were either unfounded or misleading to begin with (viz the Chimney swifts) or have since been disproved.

We see this with the portrayal of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area — including the Corbett peninsula — as ‘managed forest throughout’, meaning forest that has been clearcut and sprayed and thinned to turn it into a softwood monoculture that cannot support much biodiversity. Forest, by implication, that is not worth protecting.

Even now, when DNR itself has recognized 31 stands of old growth forest in the area, they are still feeding the Minister the same line. By definition old growth forest is not managed forest. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

Nor does the identification of 137 species at risk occurrences in the area, three-quarters of them old forest indicators.Inconvenient evidence can be ignored and inconclusive results twisted to imply whatever DNR wants to imply.

DNR claims repeatedly that they prioritize biodiversity on 90% of Crown land. This is what prioritizing biodiversity looks like for DNR:

I visited the site yesterday. I set up a couple of cameras but there really was no good spot to get a view of the crown of the tree.

Becomes:

Department staff conducted a site investigation for a potential chimney swift roost site using trail cameras near the cavity tree that was identified as a possible site the Chimney swifts were utilizing. No Chimney swifts were captured by the cameras.

Under these circumstances it is up citizens to speak for the voiceless — for the four-legged, the swimmers and flyers and crawlers, as our Mi’kmaw friends put it — for all the astonishing variety of life that is now under threat. As are we two-legged.

NN Comments The author of this letter (above) does make one slight error. Chimney swifts return en masse to their roost at dusk. But if this yellow birch was a nest site, as no less an authority than Bernard Forsythe thought likely, then the parents — a single pair — would be slipping in and out during the day to feed their young. It is notoriously difficult to spot the adults doing this. The survival of their young depends on them being inconspicuous, so they are

NN Comments on the above:

Yup, there they are saying that forest stands ‘have been identified as not being old growth by Department staff’. And yet 6 months later three stands on the peninsula had been identified as old growth.

As to the Migratory birds bullet point, it’s a mess. Staff were supposed to be investigating a nest site but they apparently decided to call it a roost site even though their cameras didn’t catch any images of Chimney swifts (possibly because they didn’t actually have a view of the place where the swifts would be going in and out.)

And the point about the photo of the Magnolia warbler in her nest was that she was a nesting bird protected under the Migratory Bird Convention Act. This applied whether or not she was a species at risk

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Camp NOW — Day 72
Nina Newington

Why not protect the Corbett Peninsula? It’s beautiful, it’s accessible, it’s full of old growth and old forest on its way to being old growth. It is home to the endangered Marten, to Rusty Blackbird and Eastern Wood Peewee, to Canada Jay and species at risk Lichens.

It’s some of the best of what we have left.

After camping here for five months this spring and summer, and two more this winter, I know it is much visited by local people – snowmobilers and cross country skiers in the winter; in the rest of the year, runners and hikers and hunters and people out walking their dogs or going for a ride in their side-by-sides.

It is rare – you could even say miraculous — to find so much old forest still standing on an easily accessible peninsula on crown land, 15 minutes outside Bridgetown. It could so easily have been cut. Just look at the last twelve year

The mill that had the contract to cut it back in 2014 didn’t get around to it.

In 2016, WestFor was created and given the license to manage crown land in Western Nova Scotia. If WestFor had had their way, most of the eastern half of the peninsula would’ve been clear cut in 2019.

But, to its credit, DNR, then Lands and Forestry, with Iain Rankin as Minister, refused to approve their clearcut plan. I know this from Freedom of Information requests (FOIPOPs) because the General Manager of WestFor at the time threw a hissy fit. It seemed to him none of his plans to clearcut were being approved by DNR. Less extreme plans were approved though. These plans weren’t made public.

In 2018 WestFor cut about 20 ha, half of one of these newly approved plans. But then they made a mistake and posted the new plan on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer for public comment – as you would with a new plan. Whoops.

The plan was pulled from public view before the comment period was up. But not before local people spotted it and began to organize to protect the rest of the area.

When WestFor put up signs in June 2019 saying logging was about to begin, 50 people gathered to protest. Some of us set up camp later that day, pretty much where Camp NOW is located.

It was nesting season. Naturalists combed the woods for nesting migratory birds. Media came to see what was happening. The General Manager of WestFor put his foot in his mouth on live radio, announcing that WestFor could change its schedule for snowmobilers but not for birds, even though that meant harvesting equipment would kill birds on their nests.

Five days after we set up camp, the harvest plan was put on hold.

After a while, people heaved a sigh of relief. There were no logging plans for the peninsula on the Harvest Plans Map Viewer. Perhaps sanity had prevailed. Word was that harvesting in the area was on hold.

It was, for five years. But then, in September 2024, at WestFor’s insistence, the hold was lifted.

We found this out by accident. A FOIPOP that asked for information about species at risk in the whole Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area showed a harvest plan had been amended as a result of a species at risk lichen find. The harvest plan was for the Corbett peninsula, a harvest plan we thought had gone away.

The FOIPOP showed two harvest plans for the peninsula, one for the east side with a sliver to the north, one for the west. They covered 54 ha. The plans showed no old growth forest stands and only the one species at risk lichen. WestFor made it a priority for DNR to approve them. DNR obliged. In January 2025 they were about to send the signed documents to WestFor when someone in DNR wrote on the approval, ‘Missing information.’

The next time the harvest plans resurfaced they showed a stand of old growth. Then two more stands. Back in 2019, DNR made a big song and dance about how there was NO old growth on the peninsula, in spite of what all those naturalists were claiming. But now there were three stands.

In the meantime, citizen scientists were out searching for species at risk lichens and finding them. By March 2025 the cutblock area had been reduced from 54 ha to 32 ha. It looked like Swiss cheese.

FOIPOPs show that DNR expected WestFor to come in and cut Corbett at the end of May 2025. We set up Lichen Camp on this spot in April, before we saw that FOIPOP. I don’t know what stopped WestFor from following through on their plan. Perhaps it occurred to them that it would be nesting season again, just as it was in 2019 when they planned to cut here.

Over the summer we identified more species at risk on the peninsula, both birds and lichens. Then the woods were closed because of the fire risk and we took down camp. In November we got word that the cutblock on the eastern half of the peninsula had just been flagged. The harvest plan had presumably been amended and approved again. We found another species at risk lichen and reported it. This cutblock must be down to 14 ha by now, half the size it was.

The next FOIPOP should tell. It’s been delayed by 30 days. Should be here soon.

Believe it or not, I could add another chapter to this tale, one concerning the endangered Marten, but let’s leave that for another day.

The big point is that it is only because of an extraordinary combination of dumb luck, industry error, and passion and diligence on the part of ordinary people that most of the old and old growth forest on the Corbett peninsula is still standing. DNR has sometimes helped but mostly harmed. It’s no wonder we have so little old growth left.

It’s particularly miraculous because the old forest on the Corbett peninsula is easy to get to. Most surviving old growth is in hard-to-reach places. Hard for industry to reach and therefore hard for the public to reach. But you don’t need a vehicle that can handle logging roads to visit the Corbett peninsula. It’s 15 minutes out of Bridgetown.

The Corbett peninsula is a unique and valuable part of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. Please keep asking for this whole area to be protected. And ask for a freeze on harvesting in the meantime.

Ask MLA David Bowlby. Mladavidbowlby@gmail.com
Ask the Premier. Premier@novascotia.ca
Bcc soof@saveouroldforests.ca so we can keep track

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Camp NOW — Day 66
Nina Newington, Feb 4, 2026

Two Save Our Old Forests members came out to camp yesterday afternoon, one to take snow photos in the sunshine, one to look for mushrooms. No, not on the ground — I asked — on tree trunks.

Last weekend, people taking a tracking workshop ate lunch and warmed up in the tent. Not too far from camp, they found not only otter track and slides, but also anal gland excretions. Unlike otter scat, these contain no fish scales but they smell plenty fishy. I love this kind of information. I have since I was a young child.

For many of us, the non-human part of the natural world is a source of fascination and wonder. Some go deeper, studying specific areas, lichens and fungi, for example. Some, like our mushroom hunter, are professional scientists, others are unpaid and unattached to any institution, but no less dedicated to precise observation.

The mechanistic origins of western science, in which humans are separate from the rest of nature and the observer is detached from the observed, lead to the notion that scientist shouldn’t care, shouldn’t feel for the subjects of their study.

As it turns out, however, the observer affects the observed. Modern physics has demonstrated this. There is no point outside of nature where we humans can stand, God-like, observing. We can be aware of our impacts, as we can be aware of our feelings towards the subject, but separation is an illusion.

Still objectivity is prioritized. Empathy — feeling with the subject — is viewed as unscientific. As for love, well that is the terrain of ‘tree huggers.’

Generally, citizen scientists don’t hug lichens, but if we could, many of us would. We make friends with certain species. When I recognize a yellow specklebelly lichen, I say, ‘Hello Yellow Specklebelly.’ I feel a little glow.

This might* be why DNR puts quotation marks around “citizen scientists” when they brief MLAs and ministers about our work, but it is precisely because I love and respect lichens in their wonderful particularity that I would not falsify any data I collected about them. They’re not mine to use as I wish. This respect is shared by all the citizen scientists I have encountered.

Other people, hearing of the hours we put in on cold winter days — or buggy summer ones — peering into cracks in maple trees in areas slated for harvest, looking for a species at risk, shake their heads. Some people ask, only half-joking, ‘Why don’t you just transplant one?’

The answer is no, not just no we can’t, but no, we won’t. We won’t, out of respect for the lichen and respect for the shared enterprise of science.

In purely practical terms, I know for myself I couldn’t speak strongly, clearly on behalf of the species that need this area to be protected if I knew we were falsifying data.

Does DNR abide by the same standards? Does the pressure of industry interests — mining, forestry —and politicians’ priorities lead them to falsify or ignore data?

*Is that the real reason they put quotation marks around “citizen scientists”? To discredit data that DNR staff in the Wildlife Division have recognised as being 98% accurate?
More on this in future posts.

More too about Etuaptmumk, Two-Eyed Seeing, the bringing together of Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge systems. Dr Elder Albert Marshall proposed and developed this idea. He’s given some great talks on this. Links when I have better signal.

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Camp NOW — Day 64
Nina Newington, Feb 2, 2026
Thoughts from the storm. Last night, sitting by the wood stove in the tent, canvas flapping, wind blundering through the treetops, I kept coming back to Larry Powell‘s brilliant post, ‘When Ordinary People Refuse to Obey – Reflections on Resistance and Remarque’s Spark of Life.’

I think in particular about his description of conscience, “that stubborn internal refusal – the decision not to become what the system demands”. The system in the novel is a Nazi concentration camp. Larry roams further afield, to the current resistance of Minnesotans, their refusal to become part of the system being created by Donald Trump and co.

Resistance is not easy. Alex Pretti was murdered trying to help another resistor.
The characters in Remarque’s novel live with constant fear. “What sustains them is not certainty of victory, but certainty of purpose. The knowledge that surrendering conscience would cost more than obedience is worth.”

At far less risk to my personal safety, it is still the same force — conscience — that has led me to camp on this logging road in February. A stubborn internal refusal to believe that my human society has the right to drive other species to extinction. The right to wreck the extraordinary home we share with millions of other forms of life. I believe the same force drives the many others who make this camp possible.

Conscience — “the decision not to become what the system demands” —is profoundly personal and, at the same time, it involves a feeling of responsibility beyond oneself. What the system demands in Nova Scotia is passivity, selfishness, indifference. Despair is helpful.
Refusal takes many different forms, but all of them involve responsibility. In the words of Mi’kmaw Elder Doctor Albert D Marshall, “our inherent responsibility is to be the eye, the ear, and the voice for those that cannot defend themselves.”

For many, this responsibility is felt primarily for other humans. That is all good. For myself, I am with Albert Marshall when he says, “our number one responsibility is to ensure our natural world is loved, appreciated and protected.”

The responsibility is not only to defend. It’s also to envision the world we want to go towards. Again in Albert Marshall‘s words, “Let’s come together and create an alternative that will allow nature to flourish.” This alternative is a place where we care for nature and for each other because we understand that we are a part of nature. Never separate. Never alone.

So that’s why I’m camped on a logging road in February. I’m glad to be doing it. I cannot accept that people have the right to chop down the forest that the endangered Marten depends on; to mess with the streams that the salmon need; to destroy the shelter of the forest that the lichen need, that the moose need. This government may pass laws intended to intimidate people working to protect our forests, imposing outlandish penalties for ill-defined infractions, but conscience refuses to be intimidated.
* * *
Quotes from Dr Elder Albert Marshall come from this powerful video about Hunters Mountain…

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Camp NOW — Day 59
Nina Newington, Jan 28, 2026
Snow and then some more snow last night. Windy cold conditions for days and now weeks. We have a tent, stove, down sleeping bags to keep warm. Wildlife from endangered moose to marten need the shelter of mature to old evergreens in this kind of winter. They need stands like the red spruce stands in the cutblock WestFor flagged shortly before we set up Camp NOW.

This cutblock does not appear on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer many people have learned about recently. The HPMV is supposed to allow the public to see all the harvest plans on Crown land, but mysteriously this plan and the other one approved for the Corbett peninsula are missing. We only know about them from Freedom of Information requests, oh and that flagging that showed up in November.

More on the curious history of these zombie harvest plans another day. Suffice to say that, thanks to public actions to protect them over the past 7 years, the old and mature red spruce north and east of camp are still standing, providing shelter from this winter’s storms. Old red spuce are a rarity, as anyone who spends time in Nova Scotia’s forests knows. Although they are capable of living well past 250 years, it’s unusual to find an old red spruce that doesn’t have some kind of flaw that made it undesirable to the mills. The only way to rebuild the stock of old growth red spruce dominated stands is to leave a few of the mature stands alone. It’s not a huge ask of a government that is supposedly committed to protecting 20% of our lands and waters.

On a happier note, participants in a tracking workshop this coming weekend will get to visit and warm up in the tent at Camp NOW. There’s a sliding scale for the workshop and still I think a couple of spots. Check it out:
https://www.toknowtheland.com/events/nova-scotia-wildlife-track-and-sign-two-day-workshop

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Camp NOW — Day 51
Nina Newington Jan 20, 2026
New snow, deep quiet, only the tap tapping of a woodpecker. Time to regroup. Feel. Think. Be with the trees.

Searching for Species at Risk where DNR would like to create a biodiversity sacrifice zone was the fun part of last week. Then came trying to explain in comments on the province’s Harvest Plan Map Viewer exactly how badly DNR has failed to follow the guidelines it laid out a mere two years ago for selecting these so called High Production Forestry sites. The guidelines that said sites important to endangered wildlife would be dropped from consideration. Ditto sites important for biodiversity. A weary anger builds as you sit for long hours and stay up too late, commenting on site after site, because it might make a difference.

It might.

It probably won’t but the thing is,
if no-one comments, that fact is highlighted. See, no one objected.

How do I know this? Through Freedom of Information requests. These are the only way you can find out what actually happened with that harvest plan you spent your evening commenting on. That’s right. The result of the review process for a harvest plan on our public land is not made public.

It grinds you down, just as it is intended to, the secretive way DNR manages public lands.

Which makes it doubly important to gather with other people who care too. The first SOOF Soup Sunday landed at just the right time, the day after the comments deadline. The Centrelea Hall was full, the soups and bread excellent. New faces mingled with familiar ones. People laughed and listened and thought. The news is not good at any scale. But here we are, doing what we can. And doing it in good company.

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Camp Now : “You may wonder why I’m posting these pictures of weird little pin-like organisms…”
Lisa Proulx Jan 16, 2026

You may wonder why I’m posting these pictures of weird little pin-like organisms…read on dear reader….

If you’ve been following us for awhile, you will have heard us talking (sometimes incessantly!) about Stubble or Calicioid lichens. Well, we have some very good reasons to share our excitement about these unusual and mostly overlooked cuties.

Stubble lichens can grow on a variety of substrates from tree bark, exposed inner wood of a tree (alive or dead), tree resin, and even some bracket fungi or other Lichens! Each species has its own specific requirements such as light, humidity, substrate pH,

texture and moisture capacity. We have spent countless hours surveying for the protected Frosted Glass Whiskers stubble lichen which is an indicator of old and old growth forest due to the long time required for the conditions it needs to develop.

Overall, the number of species of Stubble Lichens tells a story about the general age of a forest, or its ecological continuity….how long its been allowed to

do what forests do…grow and recycle nutrients creating habitat for a wide range of birds, animals, insects, fungi over time. The more Stubble Lichens in a forest stand the greater conservation value it has. In other words the forest can support a wide variety of biodiversity.

This big probably White Pine snag is an important part of that process and will continue to contribute to the forest ecology for years.

But what happens if DNR allows Westfor and its contractors to use this area for High Production Forestry? The area will be clear cut and sprayed over and over again.

Please make your voices heard by calling or emailing MLA David Bowlby and the ministers of DNR and ECC. Also put your comments on DNR’s Harvest Plan Map Viewer…links in recent posts.

Sometimes the thallus, or main body, of the Stubble Lichen is visible as you can see in the greenish, granular substance. The stalks hold the spore bearing fruiting bodies. Often it is embedded within the wood where you can’t see it.

You may be thinking…they all look the same to me! It’s true they are tiny and look a lot alike but with a hand lens, time and practice we can learn to spot subtle differences but it still takes a trained lichenologist to look at spores and the algal partner living within for a definite ID.

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Camp NOW – Day 43
Nina Newington, Jan 12, 2026

Today citizen scientists went to check out AP26D1005, the 31 ha DNR is proposing to clear cut and spray within the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area.

It was a chilly and very windy day. At 6AM the walls of the tent were flapping, and the wind was roaring in the treetops. Staying in bag seemed a better option, but we wanted to get in and look at the site before the January 17 deadline for comments on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer.

What we found was so good, we’re going to have to go back again. The forest surrounding Gibson’s Brook where it passes through the proposed clear cut is rich with species at risk lichens — seven occurrences identified today. It is also home to an extraordinary array of calicioid (stubble) lichens. More on these in another post.

What we also discovered, near the second stream to flow through the proposed clearcut, were enormous white pines. White pine is an old growth forest species capable of living north of 250 years. 116 cm DBH was the biggest I measured among the living pines. Then there were the many mighty snags with hollow crowns. The biggest of these was 121cm DBH.

It’s hard to overstate how important and how rare

these very large snags are. Big snags with hollow crowns are essential for endangered chimney swifts and bats to roost. Many other species make their homes in snags. Looking up, my eyes kept finding more and more cavities. No housing shortage for wildlife here.

And then there was the forest floor, laced with massive fallen trunks and boughs. The province’s Old-Growth Forest Policy includes the presence of ample ‘coarse woody debris’ as a key element of old-growth but I never saw coarse wood debris like this.

Some of the trunks had fallen across the brook and were clearly much used by wildlife as bridges. This is exactly the habitat the endangered Pine marten needs.

We’ll submit the species at risk

identifications to DNR, as we always do. We’ll put this site specific information in our comments on the HPMV.

The High Production Forestry Phase Two document DNR published is very clear: there can be no HPF in high biodiversity areas. The information we gathered today should be enough to make DNR drop the plan to make this an HPF site. Will it?

You can help. If you haven’t already, please submit your own comments on the HPMV by January 17th, for this harvest plan, AP26D1005. My Day 39 post has lots more information. While you’re at it, weigh in on the outrageous plan to clearcut and spray 79 ha next to the Mickey Hill Provncial Park, AP26D1003.

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Camp Now — Day 37
Nina Newington Jan 6, 2026

There’s a new face at camp, a lovely otter mask, in honour of all the otter tracks we’ve seen since setting up camp.

When I first saw this mask I cried. It’s something about the whiskers. I’m so grateful to Deb Kuzyk for the faces that fill the tent. They’re not cute but they are touching. And dignified. Possessed of their own particular spirit. Visitors pause when they choose which to hold. And yes, everyone does smile behind the cardboard, even though the photographer can’t see.

Msit no’kmaq. These are our relations. What does that mean?

Camp is a good place to think and feel. The silence is profound (except when it’s windy). In the night I hear coyotes. Twice lately a great horned owl. Evening grosbeaks and chickadees. Some mornings there are tracks in fresh snow.

Yesterday there was a mysterious channel in the snow, a slide perhaps. No paw prints. Otters again? Far from the place where I’ve seen otter tracks before. But close to another body of water.

 

You take personally what happens to your relations. Whether they have what they need to thrive. You don’t control their lives, their experiences, their fates but you care. You aren’t separate.

You aren’t alone.

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Camp NOW – Day 32 (Jan 1, 2026)
Nina Newington

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 is protesting this government’s failure to protect the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness in particular, and in general to make any progress towards meeting its own legislated commitment to protect 20% of Nova Scotia’s lands and waters by 2030.

The camp is on Crown land. It is not blocking any logging road. We don’t know if the new Protecting Nova Scotians Act (sic) will be used against the camp. We refuse to be intimidated by a vague law with ridiculous penalties. We have a constitutional right to protest.

In addition to our right to protest, we take seriously our responsibility under the Treaties of Peace and Friendship to care for these unceded lands and waters, and to respect and uphold the rights of the L’nu, the original guardians of this land. We are proud and grateful to fly the flag of the 7 Traditional Districts of Mi’kma’ki.

We wish to be a voice for the voiceless, for the bear and the marten, the lichen and the toad, moss and snake and trout and loon, and to live in the wisdom of Msit No’kmaq – all my relations. We are not separate, us humans. We have a place in nature, and responsibilities. We need to act on those responsibilities. Now.

The immediate impetus for setting up camp was discovering fresh flagging around one of the two cut blocks on the Corbett peninsula, in the eastern part of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. The flagging indicates that WestFor is getting ready to log this parcel.

This is not the first time citizens have stepped up to protect the peninsula between Corbett and Dalhousie Lakes. Following public protests in 2018-2019, including an encampment on this same spot, a hold was put on any logging here. In September 2024, bowing to pressure from WestFor, DNR quietly lifted that hold. Since then, 15 species at risk occurrences and 3 stands of old growth forest have been confirmed on the peninsula. As a result, the area available for logging has shrunk by more than half.

The amended harvest plans look like Swiss cheese. It’s nice that the new flagging excludes the buffer zones for species at risk lichens and a stand of old growth forest, but it is long past time for DNR to recognize that an area with this high a conservation value should not be logged at all.

If the government were serious about meeting its 20% commitment, it would put a freeze on logging and other industrial activities in the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area so that the area can be formally reviewed for protection. But that’s not what’s happening.
Instead, DNR recently put forward a plan to clearcut another part of the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. The same thing is happening in all the other citizen-proposed Wilderness Areas. Far from meeting its legal commitments, this government is undermining them.

Meanwhile, the reasons we need to protect substantial areas of this and every province grow ever more compelling.

This summer, the Long Lake fire burned right up to the boundaries of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. Human activities played a big part in this fire. The managed softwood plantations that have replaced so much of our native Wabanaki forest set the stage for the fire, a fire that burned out of control as a result of a terrible drought. The drought was made far more likely by human-caused climate change.

Climate change and nature loss threaten our whole existence and the lives of all our relations on this planet. It is time to say no to business as usual, to say we want to care for the land and for each other. We don’t want to extract and extract and extract to line the pockets of the rich and never mind the cost. We are all already paying the cost and that cost will only grow.

It’s time to change course. How do we do that?                                                                        *Keep using all the available channels to insist that our governments respect their legal commitments to protect nature. And don’t give up.
*Get in the way of what damages the Earth.                                                                          *Stand shoulder to shoulder with the traditional guardians of this land.                         *Paint and write and dance and dream.
*Grow food and share it.

Each of us must do what we can. But we don’t have to do it alone. Here’s hoping we come together in 2026, settlers and Mi’kmaq, rural and urban, young and old, to look after the Earth and each other in the spirit of the Treaties of Peace and Friendship.

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Camp NOW — Day 29
Nina Newington, Dec 29, 2025
So many visitors to camp in the days before this latest storm, many replenishing the stock of treats. Simple pleasures abound. Putting a face to a facebook name. Real, wide ranging conversation between 3 generations. Sunshine and ice make art on the tent. Otter makes tracks again.

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Camp NOW — Day 23
Nina Newington, Dec 23, 2025

Snow tells stories about what our no’kmaq — our relations — are up to. Last night, for example, or perhaps in the early hours of this morning — long enough ago for some snow to have sifted into his or her tracks — a coyote came trotting up the logging road from the north. Twenty metres from camp they slowed then made a tight little circle and went back the way they came. After a few metres they headed west into the forest.
A hundred and fifty metres south of the camp, coyote tracks reappear on the road. They come out of the forest on the west side of the road. Same size tracks, same length of stride, same vintage. Probably the same coyote, going on about their business, having skirted the camp, heading south on the road past Corbett Lake.

Other fresher tracks cross the coyote’s: snowshoe hare, squirrel, mice, a grouse.
When I was younger I took tracking courses from a guy called Paul Rezendes and wandered the woods where I lived, hungry to read the forest. I was never that good at tracking, but eager to learn. I found out early that paying close attention to the natural world is a reliable source of joy. It is also heartbreaking. If you’ve paid attention, it is impossible to miss how empty the woods are, compared to how they were even 40 years ago. And by all accounts, those woods were empty compared to the way they had been 40 years before that.

Recent studies have established the links between forest degradation – the loss of old natural forest — in the Maritimes and declines in bird populations. It’s not only birds that need settlers to mend our ways. Colonization devastated the wildlife of Mi’kma’ki as surely and as systematically as it devastated the human society indigenous to this place. But the web of life in these lands and waters is powerful and resilient.

However diminished the forests may be, it matters more than ever to protect the best of what is left.
And it matters to learn. Paying close attention deepens love. It is love of the land and the water that makes us willing to stand up for this place and for all our relations.

By a happy coincidence there is a two day tracking workshop coming up at the end of January, with one of the days using Camp NOW as a base. Spaces are limited.

https://www.toknowtheland.com/events/nova-scotia-wildlife-track-and-sign-two-day-workshop

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Camp NOW — Day 21
Nina Newington, Dec 21, 2025

Camp came through the storm just fine.
And today we crossed the threshold into winter. Every year I am grateful that the days are already getting longer by the time winter bares its teeth. Imagine if the days kept getting shorter until February!

The Winter Solstice is a holy day to me, a day to ground in the cycle of the year in northern climes. To connect with ancestors who knew without question that we are part of the natural world. Living in a tent helps.

Not without artificial lighting, it must be said. The length of the nights is measured in the battery power required to charge camp’s ‘solar’ lanterns.

But today, today is the day the nights start growing shorter.

It is also the day a terrifing array of delectable treats arrived at camp from Arch & Po bakery in Annapolis Royal. I’ll do my best to diffuse the treat bomb but it’s a good thing we have plenty of visitors coming over the holidays.

Looking at all these goodies is reminding me of the first time Arch & Po sent Christmas treats. That was to the Last Hope Camp, set up on December 2nd, 2021 to protest the planned logging of a forest by Beals Brook, about 15 km east of here. They sent us tree cookies with green icing. That tangible, edible support really mattered. It still does.

Thank you, Arch & Po, and all the other local businesses that support SOOF’s work. Special shout out to the Bees Knees while I am at it for donating yummy bread to so many SOOF Soup Sundays.

There’s something about these cold short days that makes one treasure human warmth and kindness even more than usual. Camping out in winter ratchets that up a notch. It also makes me very aware of all the people without shelter, without the funds to stay warm, without dry clothes, without enough to eat.

Lots of people are asking about donating to Camp NOW. We are doing fine for now so if you can, make a donation to people who need a little help to stay warm and dry and fed this season.

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Camp NOW — Day 19
Nina Newington Dec 19, 2025

The Goldsmith Lake area is one of only a few places on the mainland where Marten have been documented in multiple locations.

Yesterday, in the calm before the storm, documentary maker Emily Russell stopped by camp again to get some drone footage and to talk a bit more in the wake of the arson at Hunter’s Mountain.

She got to try out the new Marten mask too. The Pine or American Marten is recognized as endangered in Cape Breton. DNR has been studying Marten populations on the mainland. The Wildlife division is in the process of recognizing the Marten as endangered in the whole of Nova Scotia. The Goldsmith Lake area is one of only a few places on the mainland where Marten have been documented in multiple locations.

DNR recognizes that the Corbett peninsula — where camp is located — is Marten habitat. And yet their plans allow logging to go ahead here.

Camp NOW is here to speak for the Marten. They need this forest to be protected. Wildlife need protected wilderness areas. So do people.
Camp NOW is here to protest this government’s ongoing failure to meet its own legal commitment to protect 20% of our land land and water.

Thank you to all our visitors, from film-makers to carol singers to cookie-bearers and firewood-bringers and camp-tie-downers, to people stopping by to say hello and get a little owl-y. ‘Tis the season to care for all our relations.

Msit No’kmaq

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Day 17 Biodiversity in the GLWA
By Keith Egger, dec 17, 2025

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Camp NOW — Day 12
Nina Newington Dec 12, 2025

No visitors yesterday — the road in was horrible — but beautiful brief sunny breaks.
Wednesday brought Erin and Emily, making a documentary about Hunters Mountain, and Sadie Beaton, fellow organizer for last month’s Shoulder to Shoulder: We Are All Treaty People rally.

Sadie has been showing up for her responsibilities as a settler under the Treaties of Peace and Friendship for many years now. She has built relationships of trust by being there for the work. It was a privilege to sit and listen and talk in the tent while Emily recorded and filmed and Erin asked questions.

Tim Houston’s aggressive disrespect for Mi’kmaw rights, the rights of nature, our democratic rights as Nova Scotians, is prompting many more of us to stand up, to stand together, to say ‘No, this is not the direction we want to go in. We want to live in peace and friendship with each other and with all our non-human relatives on this beautiful unceded land.’

It is good to have time at camp to think and feel about my own responsibilities as a settler here. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work peacefully and persistently to protect forests and lakes and wetlands that are home to such a variety of life. To speak for those who cannot speak for themselves: the animals, the trees, the fungi, the lichens.

Msit No’kmaq.

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Camp NOW – Day 8
Nina Newington Dec 8, 2025

Check out The Todd Veinotte Show on 95.7 News radio tomorrow at 10:30am. Live interview from Camp NOW!
In the meantime, visitors and beautiful fluffy snow and dry firewood. Life is good.
Speak for the animals. They too need protected areas.

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Nina Newington
Camp NOW – Day 6
Fun to have visitors to camp, bringing news of otters — four of them crossing the road on the way in!
I keep thinking about all the wildlife displaced by the Long Lake fire. The fire came right up to the southeast corner of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. The fire burned 85 square kilometers. The proposed Wilderness Area covers 40 square km. Wildlife need refuge more than ever. Why can’t the government just protect this area?

Donna Crossland spoke so well about this in yesterday’s CBC interview. Protecting the area helps people as well as animals, especially the people who are now living in a blackened landscape. The green shade of an old forest is soothing, healing.

To listen to the interview or read a rough transcript, check out https://nsforestmatters.ca/in-the-news-top/in-the-news-climate-change/rough-transcript-of-what-do-forest-protections-look-like-now

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Dec 4, 2025
Nina Newington
Camp N.O.W. – Need Our Wilderness – is up and running on the Corbett Peninsula in Annapolis County, the same part of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area where Lichen Camp was set up in April.

But Camp NOW is different. We are here to protest this 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 20% 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.

A couple of weeks ago, citizen scientists discovered new flagging around the largest cutblock on the Corbett peninsula. With recognized Pine Marten habitat, three stands of old growth forest, and 12 confirmed species at risk occurrences, the peninsula’s high conservation value is well-established. It more than meets all the government’s own criteria for areas to protect. But DNR is allowing logging to go ahead anyway. Enough is enough.

MORE ON THIS STORY tomorrow at 6:40 am on CBC Radio’s Information Morning