In Nova Scotia, we set up windmills to reduce fossil fuel use and GHG emissions; then we clearcut around them to reduce carbon sequestration so we can be sure the planet keeps getting warmer anyway. Or something like that.
Apologies, ‘published’ in error while I was drafting it; ‘should be up in a few days.**
For info on the site in question (today is last day it’s open for comment on the HPMV), see
PI204568 atop Dalhousie Mountain 15Jan2021
On nswildflora.ca
My comment, submitted today:
On top of a mountain, 100 m from a nature reserve, the largest patch of multi-aged/old growth in the area (outside of PAs), sugar maple dominant, a popular area for hikers..ignores effects on old forest biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration (how ironical.. next to a windmill); to harvest it at all is flagrant disregard for the many alternative values Nova Scotians have for such areas, also to the basic spirit of the Lahey Report
**Jan 18, 2021: I couldn’t do any more of it, especially after looking at the today’s harvest announcement and where and what they want to harvest, it is too upsetting, too disturbing to continue write about again and again as I have since June 2016, while trying as well to highlight more positive news, now so rare. Anyway, here is a figure I produced related to the above-mentioned harvest, and another nearby . It’s hard to see any evidence for landscape level planning for biodiversity conservation or even for sustainable harvesting (yields) on these, our Crown lands.
Some more info… The Crown lands (turquoise boundaries) and the two recently proposed harvests in the area (from the HPMV) layered over forest development stage (from the PLV).
For more depressing evidence of the lack of planning by Big Forestry/L&F for anything except ‘take what can get as fast as you can get it and get as much of it as you can from Crown lands because the bureaucrats and the L&F Minister are easier to deal with than a bunch of smaller independent land owners who often want to do things very differently’, view Landscape-level “Log the best and leave the rest” on Nova Scotia’s Crown land forests 10Jan 2021
And accept my apologies for an absolutely dismal post. It’s approaching one year since Prof. Lahey was supposed to give his assessment of L&F’s progress on implementing his recommendations, and approaching 3 years since he made those recommendations, and 11 years since big changes were first promised (Natural Resources Strategy 2010); meanwhile the status quo is maintained with a little window-dressing…and from bureaucrats and ruling party politicians there is indifference -except when the politicians are running to be Premier- to concerns expressed by so many Nova Scotians, young and old, rural and urban about the state of our forests and forestry in NS and our role in the global biodiversity and climate crises that affect us all.
Jan 19, 2021: The sun is out, the temperatures have finally fallen to below zero territory, the ground is frozen but with little snow on it and I can now walk to some of the intact forest sites hard to get to in other seasons. So I will take a long walk to clear the cache…