Given the inept timing – following public protest about HPMV notifications – one has to wonder if L&F and NP are contracting the same PR firm
By the time local residents learned about the harvest proposed for their beloved Hardwood Hill, the comment period had expired. At least it was still posted on the HPMV. Now, such harvests will be removed once the comment period has expired “to simplify the mapping, speed up the application’s response time and adhere to the intention of the HPMV.”
Received from Forestry Maps yesterday (bolding mine):
Tomorrow, January 31, 2019, the department will be implementing some enhancements to the Harvest Plan Map Viewer (HPMV) based on requests we have received from users.
Changes to make it easier to read and download maps include: colour shading harvest plans to identify the harvest prescription, no longer displaying parks that are outside of Nova Scotia, and changing the colour of Nature Reserves. In addition, harvest plans that are no longer open to comments will be removed from the map and the legend in order to simplify the mapping, speed up the application’s response time and adhere to the intention of the HPMV.
Crown land harvest plans will still be available on the HPMV for 40 days for public comments. Any sites new to the HPMV since the last update will be clearly identified.
The HPMV will be unavailable for a period of time (starting at 2:00pm on January 31, for approximately 3 hours) during the day while the changes are implemented. Thank you for your patience while we improve the user experience.with the much increased attention to L&F on Social Media.
So much for transparency. It may just be coincidental that some of the recent controversies regarding particular Crown land harvests arose when local residents realized “too late” that a proposed cut had been posted on the HPMV but the comment period had passed…, e.g., the cut proposed for Hardwood Hill (in Premier Mcneil’s riding) which was eventually nixed anyway due to public outcry – and some pretty good reasons.
I guess there is not much hope that the level of info provided on the HPMV will increase e.g., as suggested under HPMV on this website.
For most of the time since I began NSFN (June 21, 2016) I have highlighted the HPMV and the group maintaining it as a very positive element of NSDNR/L&F Forestry. However the tone seems to have changed decidedly in the last few months.
With the much increased attention to L&F on Social Media, I don’t expect this most recent change to go unnoticed.
I have already seen some rumblings about it.
The timing of the announcement seems particularly inept, like the timing of NP’s Halifax event today. Are L&F and NP using the same PR firm?
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