From the Healthy Forest Coalition (Facebook public group), Dec 17, 2018:
MTRI photo
URGENT!
PUBLIC FEEDBACK NEEDED ON PARCEL LU0684021 – DEADLINE OF JAN. 19, 2019.
One of the oldest forests in the Maritimes, let alone Nova Scotia has been proposed for harvest.
With an average age over 271 years and a presence of individual trees at least 422 years old, this forest is now proposed to be harvested as a uniform shelterwood, or, as the National Forestry Database would refer to it as, a clearcut.
Last year, the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute, using the Department of Lands and Forestry’s own Old Forest assessment score sheet, determined that this forest is, in fact Old Growth and deemed it to be “one of the most significant finds in the Maritimes”. See more about their assessment here: http://www.speciesatrisk.ca/oldforest/web/?q=view-plot/703
Forests like these are supposed to receive automatic protection. See more via the Old Forest Policy here: https://novascotia.ca/natr/library/forestry/reports/Old-Forest-Policy-2012.pdf
Please submit your comments on the HPM Viewer now and also send your concerns to Minister of Lands and Forestry Iain Rankin, and your local MLA, by Jan. 19, 2019.
If you were waiting to see concrete evidence that the systems on which we depend to manage our public forests needed to change, this is it.
Photos from MTRIs assessment link
It seems DNR/L&F didn’t want to learn anything from the Loon Lake area cuts.
Happy New Year, folks