Some really Good News for the Wabanaki Forest, private landowners and all of us in Nova Scotia: the Medway Community Forest Cooperative announces a new Land Trust that will allow working woodlot owners with a commitment to long-term, ecologically oriented management to ensure their land remains under good stewardship, no matter who owns it.
From a post on Dec 14, 2021 the Medway Community Forest Co-op Facebook Page:
It’s hard to believe that our vision to develop a working forest land trust to serve responsible small private woodlot owners has now been in the works for over 3 years.
As a small private woodlot owner, would you consider placing a legally-binding easement on your property that will protect your stewardship legacy in perpetuity, while still allowing access to timber? We invite you to listen, engage and learn as we build Nova Scotia’s first working forest land trust!
Follow the new trust on Instagram @nsworkingwoodlandstrust, Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust, and click the link to hear our segment on the CBC’s Information Morning (Dec 14th) on how we’re using carbon credits to launch!
From the NSWWT website
The Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust envisions a healthy, resilient forested landscape across nova scotia through a network of landowners with a shared commitment to long-term stewardship
The Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust (NSWWT) was founded to fill a void in land conservation in Nova Scotia. We aim to uphold the long-term stewardship of working woodlands in Nova Scotia, through ecological forestry and conservation.
From our research we’ve found Private landowners in rural Nova Scotia:
◦ Care about their woodlots, and what will happen to them when they’re unable to care for them,
◦ Are interested in gaining economic return from their woodlots, and provide economic benefits to their kin, and
◦ Are older, with no clear intergenerational inheritance strategy to support sustainable forestry.
Woodlot owners age without options for an intergenerational path, to have family continue to promote active use of their property. Too often we see small private woodlots sold and liquidated rather than tended using sustainable practices.
The NSWWT offers a wide variety of services to help you conserve your stewardship legacy.
Our hope is to build forest assets for our rural communities, by promoting the healthy forest conditions that allow our forests to mature and develop higher value products.
Through the Nova Scotia Community Easements Act, NSWWT places working woodlot easements on private woodlands with exceptional stewardship legacies. Woodlot owners remain the stewards and owners of their lands, but must adhere to their easement agreed practices. These are tied to the forest management plan complete by one of our partner organizations.
Placing an easement on your property does not have to mean you can’t continue to harvest firewood or maintain an annual harvest. Combined with the principles of ecological forestry, our easements allow us to keep working the woods without comprising biodiversity.
Santa had some hard-working helpers on this one.
Thank you Medway Community Forest Co-op