Big bucks in forestry but not for room rental

“The forest industry activity accounted for $2.1 billion in total economic output (in 2015),” Forest Nova Scotia Executive Director Harry Sullivan told a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Truro. However there was no time to discuss questions about the environmental impact of large forestry operations. See Truro Daily.

According to a NSDNR press release of Sep 21 forestry employed 11,500 Nova Scotians in direct or indirect jobs in 2015 and added $800 million to the province’s gross domestic product. (The GDP for Nova Scotia in 2014 was $39 billion.) A Royal Bank Report indicates there have been declines exports of paper and wood products from Nova Scotia in 2016.

It would be nice to see a more complete economic picture, e.g. with the environmental costs of forestry tabulated, a comparison of returns on investments with other sectors of the economy and an objective projection of the future of forestry and our forests on the current trajectory.

People want more informative statistics and more balanced perspectives. For example, in a letter to the editor in the CH on Sep 22, Luke Batdorf commented “With current policy and whole-tree harvesting, along with a retreat back into a weak quasi-clear-cutting forestry, our forests will die. Arguably, the big mills added economic gain to communities, but there is no hard quantifiable evidence to prove this. Rural communities are emptying of people, just as our forests are emptying of trees.”