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– Recent Posts
– Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area proposal
What is Lichen Camp?
Copied from a post by Lisa Proux on Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area, (Public Facebook Group) on Mar 5, 2024:
Lichen Camp is a forest protection and education camp dedicated to educating the public and the government about biodiversity and the importance of protecting it. The specific focus is protecting the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. The camp came together when it became clear that the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables had removed the holds on extensive harvest plans in the area and that logging was imminent.
In 2022, Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova proposed this 3900 hectare area of forests, wetlands and lakes to the Minister of Environment for protection as the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. They have been exploring the area ever since, discovering old growth forests and species at risk. By March 2023 they had identified 17 species at risk occurrences, almost all lichens and almost all in cutblocks previously approved for harvesting. To their credit, DNRR put holds on all the cutblocks touched by species at risk occurrences. By the beginning of March 2024, the citizen scientists had doubled the number of species at risk occurrences they had identified within the proposed wilderness area. They also discovered that the holds had been lifted and that DNRR was allowing logging to proceed in all but “portions” of the cutblocks.
Lichen Camp is asking the government to extend immediate interim protection to the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area while final decisions are made as to which 300,000 hectares will be conserved in order to meet the target of protecting 20% of Nova Scotia by 2030.
In the meantime, Lichen Camp will serve as a base for workshops and guided hikes, teaching people about lichens, species at risk and the importance of old forests. With a pristine lake and old growth forest nearby, Lichen Camp is a great starting point for people to see for themselves why the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area needs to be protected in perpetuity, for humans and for all our non-human kin.
Also view:
– The proposal to protect the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area
“The original proposal to protect the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area was submitted to the Protected Areas Branch (Department of Environment and Climate Change) in November 2022. Since that time there have been many more amazing discoveries of Species at Risk and Old Growth so the Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova Scotia submitted an update to the proposal. This update was submitted to the Protected Areas Branch, and Minister Halman on May 22, 2024.” – Laura Bright on Friends of Goldsmith lake Wilderness Area May 27, 2024
View: Updated Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area Proposal 2024-05-22
Stats on July 14, 2024.
Click on image for larger version.
– Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (iNaturalist Project)
Created by Laura Bright, Nov 3, 2022; Project admins:ninanewington laura_bright lproulx
“Documenting the rich biodiversity of the (proposed) Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area located on the South Mountain of Annapolis County.”
– Bursting the stubble bubble: citizen scientists measure ecological continuity near Goldsmith Lake, Nova Scotia using calicioid lichens and fungi
by Ashlea Viola, Nina Newington, Jonathan Riley, Steven Selva and Lisa Proulx, 2024. In Evansia, vol. 41, issue 1, pages 9-18.
Abstract: In an effort to protect a forest on provincial land near Goldsmith Lake in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, from timber harvest operations, a group of citizen scientists began documenting the biodiversity of the area. In December 2022, the group invited Dr. Steven Selva, a lichenologist specializing in calicioid lichens and fungi, to visit and teach them how to locate and collect calicioid specimens. We found 27 calicioid species, one of which was new to the Maritimes, providing additional evidence that the forest is rich in biodiversity and that the areas recognized as old-growth were larger than the provincial government had previously realized.