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(www.nsforestmatters.ca/The Camps/Lichen Camp/Recent Posts -2025 Lichen Camp)
Lichen Camp 2025 — Day 25
Nina Newington, May 7, 2025
A busy day at Lichen Camp yesterday. Deb Kuzyk painted a lovely new sign. Then CBC’s Moira Donovan came to tape a segment on lichen hunting to save forests for “Now or Never”. That should air on CBC radio on May 15th. (We’ll let you know when the date is confirmed.)
Supper was a joint effort featuring a magnificent rhubarb custard flan thing plus weed bread with dandelion and nettle (Silva), an excellent salad with raspberry dressing (Lisa), homemade sheep cheese and a surprising pasta with chimichurri (Nina). The surprise was that I thought I was bringing pats of basil pesto from the freezer, not pats of an Argentinian herb sauce intended to accompany grilled meat…
Then we replaced the canopy on the cook tent with a slightly less battered one (thank you Alexa) so that Silva can try to resurrect or recreate the now irreplaceable original. It was a happy moment, earlier in the day, when I mentioned that we needed to find someone to do just this and Silva instantly volunteered her unsuspected skills.
All that before Karen Achenbach joined us at dusk and we embarked on an Owl Survey for Birds Canada. The wind level was a bit marginal but (after a couple of calls to people with more experience) we gave it a go anyway. The owls decided to sit it out. Except for the one that flew in close to camp just after the official recording period was over…
So the day ended with four of us running the roads in the dark. We got back to camp at 1am.
All in a day’s work at Lichen Camp. Not really. It’s usually a bit more relaxed.
On “Intelligent Meandering” in the citizen proposed GLWA
Lisa Proulx, May 4, 2025
We continue to look for Species at Risk (SAR) in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area, in an attempt to protect not only the old growth forests, but the younger and mature areas in between, to ensure the ecological continuity and continuous habitat that so many of our vulnerable species need for future survival.
We spend many hours most weeks “intelligently meandering” through the beautiful woods searching for new locations of SAR and also other species that we haven’t documented yet.
Lichen Camp 2025 — Day 21
Nina Newington, May 3, 2025
From Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area
(Public Facebook Page)
Lichen Camp 2025 – Day 19
Nina Newington, May 2, 2025
With permission from the District Chief of Kespukwitk, the flag of the 7 Traditional Districts of Mi’kma’ki is flying over Lichen Camp again. It is an honour and a responsibility, to be camped on unceded land, working to protect the forests and all who depend on them, human and other than human.
Msit nokoma
Good news (with reservations): Goldsmith Lake is now “under active evaluation for permanent protection, a process that requires thorough ecological, cultural, and socio-economic analysis to ensure durable outcomes.”
This statement comes from a letter MLA David Bowlby wrote in response to the deluge of mail he received. The mail was about the logging that began on April 12th in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. The response letter was most likely crafted by DNR and government communications strategists. Variations of it were sent out on April 23rd. That’s quite prompt for government.
There is an established process, conducted by the Protected Areas Branch of the Department of Environment and Climate Change, for assessing areas for permanent protection. The process takes about a year. It includes socio-economic analysis and formal consultations with the public.
The paragraph stating that Goldsmith is “under active evaluation” ends: “Public input, like yours, is vital to this process, and I encourage you to continue contributing through formal consultations.”
*Considering that, until recently, the Minister of Natural Resources claimed not to know anything about a proposal to protect Goldsmith, the news that the area is now in the evaluation process is very good news indeed.*
It is not clear when this process of formal evaluation began but it is probably recent — there are no references to it in FOIPOPs up to January 23rd of this year.
There is another sentence in this same paragraph that is both good and bad news: “The Department of Natural Resources and Environment and Climate Change collaborate closely to advance protection priorities while respecting existing legal harvest approvals. Your call for urgency is noted, and I have shared your request with both ministers to reinforce the need for expedited assessment where possible.”
The good news is that DNR and Environment and Climate Change are finally working together. By all accounts, this has not been the case. Instead DNR has been obstructing the process, resulting in miniscule progress towards the protection targets and a stunning example of government incompetence.
The bad news lies in that “while respecting existing legal harvest approvals.” In the past, when an area was formally being assessed for protection, there was a moratorium on any logging, road-building or industrial activity in the area until the assessment was complete. That is how it is done in other parts of the world. It’s hard to assess the conservation value of an area while it is being actively degraded. But that, it seems, is the plan, no doubt thanks to DNR.
Not to give you whiplash, but there is some slight good news within the bad news clause. DNR to date has not only been trying to log existing harvest approvals, they have been working on approving new ones for within areas already proposed for protection. For example, they put a brand new harvest plan up for comments on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer at the beginning of November. The plan was for an area within the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area. DNR received a mighty response from the public: 44 emails opposing the plan plus at least 6 comments made via the HPMV. I don’t know if DNR plans to go ahead and approve this new plan in spite of the fierce public opposition. Perhaps not, if they are only going to cut “existing legal harvest approvals.”
*More on new and existing plans for another post. For now, savour the good news that the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area is in the formal process of being evaluated for permanent protection. It is a perfect candidate to help the government meet the commitment it made to protect 15% of our province by the end of 2026.*
Whether or not you personally received a version of this letter, please write to MLA David Bowlby to thank him for this good news and remind him to keep on pushing on our behalf for that “expedited assessment.” Mention, if you want, that it is normal practice to pause logging etc. while an area is being evaluated for protection.*
mladavidbowlby@gmail.com
Lichen Camp 2025 Day 16
Nina Newington, Apr 30, 2025
On Sunday, a snapping turtle crossed the road near Dalhousie Lake. Watching it was way more fun than going to look at the logging that has been happening for 10 days just south of last year’s Lichen Camp.
There are things we know. The machinery being used is more modern and precise. The amount of the forest being removed has been scaled back from 50% to 20-30%. The total area of this harvest plan has been reduced by more than half, thanks to the efforts of citizen scientists. But when you see the piles of logs by the side of the abominably wide logging road, the reality of ‘forest removal’ hits.
It’s worse when you follow the ‘extraction trail’ in, stepping on crushed treetops. When you stop to count the rings on the red spruce stump. It was 91 years old and now it’s gone. Look at the machine damage to the bark of a lusty yellow birch. Notice the very large, old yellow birch and red maple scattered through this forest that DNR claims is only 53 years old. Some of this forest was clearcut around 50 years ago, but not all.
It’s not old-growth forest but it is forest with natural diversity in both the kinds of trees and their ages. It is a forest recovering from past ‘forest management.’ And now, instead of being allowed to get on with becoming old and, in time, old-growth forest, it is being ‘managed’ again.
The province’s own Old-Growth Forest Policy is crystal clear that you cannot manage forest into becoming old-growth. Only time can do that. Time and being left alone. Any documented silviculture (forestry) since 1990 disqualifies a forest from being recognized as old-growth.
Old-growth forest is so ecologically valuable because it has had time and the material to develop a complex array of micro-habitats – nooks and crannies – which then support a tremendous diversity of life forms. This happens when nothing much is removed from the forest. Storms will come. Trees, when they fall, lie on the ground, rotting, feeding, sheltering innumerable life forms.
The whole idea of creating protected areas is to allow this natural process to take place. It is the only way we can restore ecosystem health to our degraded forests. Any logging damages this process by removing matter from the forest. Obviously we are not going to protect everywhere. But in the areas we are going to protect, there should be no logging.
Those piles of logs by the side of the road west of Goldsmith Lake represent a theft from the future. In 2022, 196 countries around the world committed to protecting 30% of the planet by 2030. Why? Because we need to restore and protect the health of nature if we and our kids and grandkids are going to have a future. One act of greed at a time, that future is being destroyed.
Lichen Camp 2025 Day 10
Lisa Proulx Apr 24, 2025
I got to spend some relaxing time with my Mum at Lichen Camp last night. The Barred Owl bade us goodnight and the Loons yodelled during the wee hours. Dawn ushered in the Hermit Thrush’s beautiful flute like song just before the Purple Finch exuberantly announced his presence. Much to our delight the Winter Wren took over and twittered off and on all morning!
Then the humans arrived!
We’re always grateful for the good and generous people that come out to support our efforts!
Lichen Camp 2025 — Day 7
Nina Newington, Apr 19, 2025
Woke this morning in our relocated camp to Winter wren and Hermit thrush, then an owl and the wild cackle of a loon. The move went swimmingly yesterday with 11 people making light work of the task.
It feels good to be camped near the old forest on the peninsula between Corbett and Dalhousie Lake. Good to have our base for research and education in the eastern part of the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area this year. It will make it easier to fill out the picture of the remarkable biodiversity this whole area supports. There is more old-growth forest to be found here to complement all the stands now recognized around Goldsmith Lake.
And for the education component, this is a remarkably accessible area. Local people walking their dogs and out on ATVs in the sunshine yesterday stopped to chat as we raised the big tent. When we told them about the purpose of the camp there were plenty of thumbs up.
Then today, as part of an Earth Day celebration at Centrelea Hall, Donna Crossland led a guided hike into old forest on the peninsula. 17 people strong, the group included children and parents and grandparents. Some participants have deep family ties to the land we are working to protect.
After a couple of hours of walking among big mama yellow birch and ash and maple, learning about the tale the pit and mound topography tells of wind-toppled forest giants of the past, everyone was ready for a SOOF Soup lunch and activities back at the hall.
Lichen Camp 2025 – Day 5
Nina Newington April 17, 2025
April 16, 6 am. We sat in the tent, drinking coffee, listening to a Hermit thrush. Mostly we heard a very chatty robin but when he stopped for breath, we caught those liquid notes, clear as a rocky stream. Last year, the first one I recorded was on April 24. Several more arrived over the next week. They felt like the voice of the forest, the Hermit thrushes singing first thing in the morning and again in the evening.
It came to feel like a pledge, to keep the peace for the creatures of this forest, for the Hermit thrushes and all the others whose long migration brings them home to this exact place. A pledge to let this 55 year old stand of red spruce around camp heal from the clearcutting and “management” it has suffered over the years.
Moss has carpeted the forest floor. Wildflowers from Blue-bead to Ladyslippers have established themselves, as have many kinds of fungi. It is still far from supporting the amazing variety of life found in the old forest nearby but it is on its way. It is at last storing significant amounts of carbon again, soaking up heavy rainfall and sheltering the older forest from the ferocious winds that blow wherever forest has been removed.
Camping on the abominably wide logging road that WestFor put in down the west side of Goldsmith Lake in 2022 taught us just how critical continuous forest cover is for preserving the shady, humid conditions most forest species depend on.
Last year, DNR let this forest be. They had amended their harvest plans once already by the time we set up camp, scaling them back by 40%. Using Lichen Camp as a base, citizen scientists went on to identify another 18 species at risk occurrences that impacted the parts that were still approved for cutting.
But instead of saying, ‘Okay, it is time to let the Department of Environment assess this area to see if it meets the criteria for permanent protection,’ DNR seems to be helping WestFor to get in and cut what they can, while they can.
On April 13, when we came in to set up Lichen Camp 2025, there was a large piece of equipment parked next to where we camped last year, but none of the usual signage to indicate harvesting was planned or happening. Ordinarily WestFor posts ‘Caution Industrial Work Site’ signs on the roads into the area. These give the ID numbers for the active harvest plans as well as the start date and the name of the contractor.
On April 15 DNR and WestFor officials arrived at camp. We were told we were in an active harvest zone and that we had to move our camp.
Mysteriously, the required warning signs appeared along the road shortly after this meeting. They were backdated to April 12.
For people’s safety we made a decision to move the camp. We will be moving soon, but certainly not leaving the area.
It is hard to fail the Hermit thrush, the forest, our non-human kin. It is a beautiful and joyful thing, to feel connected to a place through working to protect it. It hurts when that place is hurt, as this forest will be. The harm won’t be as bad as it would have been without our efforts but it is still harm.
The harvest plan that has been re-amended and approved does not include the old forest south of camp. But it does cover the 55 year old forest around camp and a little way to the south. In our discussion with DNR and WestFor, WestFor’s Ian Curry said that the contractor has been instructed to take only 20% of the forest. The original removal approved by DNR for this stand was 50%. With many eyes on this harvest, WestFor will probably follow
through on this. They will also probably avoid the hideous rutting seen on recent harvest sites in other proposed protected areas.
Taking 20-30% rather than 50% does represent progress towards a more genuinely ecological forestry.
EXCEPT that it is never “ecological” to log in an area that should be protected. This is so obvious it shouldn’t need saying. But apparently it does.
The Houston government made a legal commitment to protect 20% by 2030, with an interim target of 15% by 2026. Progress has been so slow that, in order to reach 15%, they need to protect 60,000 hectares by 2026. The Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area is just under 4,000 ha. With over 100 species at risk occurrences and 21 old growth-forest stands, it is an obvious candidate for protection.
The government’s failure to put a pause on logging in areas like Goldsmith while they are assessed for permanent protection is…well, what is the right word? Baffling, infuriating, incompetent? Suggestions welcome.
Please email the Premier, premier@novascotia.ca
Tell him that Log Now, Protect Later is not acceptable. It is time for him to order DNR and Environment to work together to protect the best of what is left of our forests.
If you live in Annapolis County, contact MLA David Bowlby mladavidbowlby@gmail.com
Tell him you want Goldsmith assessed for protection now, before any more damage is done. Tell him you care and you vote.
Lichen Camp 2025 is up and running
Nina Newington, Apr 13, 2025
Happy to say Lichen Camp 2025 is up and running in the same spot as last year’s camp. We — a loose collection of people working to protect the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area — are excited to continue with our research and education initiatives. It is our hope that this magnificent area will soon be identified as a candidate for protection to help the province meet its goal of protecting 15% of our lands and waters by the end of 2026.
To date we have identified and reported over 100 species at risk occurrences in this area. We have also identified numerous stands of old-growth forest, some of which have now been assessed by DNR and added to the Old Growth Forest Policy. To date there are 21 stands of recognized old-growth within the proposed Wilderness Area. We have requested that DNR assess another 19 old forest stands to see if they meet the Policy’s criteria. It will be fun to scout for more now the snow is out of the woods.
We will continue to learn about and document the rich lichen life of these forests but this year we are going to focus a bit more on other species too. It turns out that DNR’s survey of American Marten in Kespuktwik/Southwest Nova Scotia identified Goldsmith as one of the few areas where they found these rare animals. The American Marten is in the process of being declared endangered in Mainland Nova Scotia. A DNR trail cam in old forest on the west side of Goldmith Lake caught a picture of one last spring, then last summer Lisa Proulx, one of the citizen scientists working in this area, saw one on the other side of the lake.
And there are birds. Some arenesting already in these forests. Soon there will be many more arriving. Last year’s camp allowed us to document several species at risk here including Olive-sided Flycatcher, Common Nighthawk, Chimney Swift and Canada Warbler. This year we are partnering with Birds Canada in an Owl Survey. We’ll also be offering a nighttime Owl Prowl in the eastern part of the proposed Wilderness Area. And then there is that Northern Goshawk nest we didn’t find last year.
It’s exciting to get rolling again. Please join us for more hikes and workshops this year.