Reading the Lahey Report, hot off the press, at Province House on Aug 21, 2018
UPDATES:
– William Lahey on the Province’s lack of progress on his landmark forestry report (audio)
CBC Info AM Dec 1, 2021 “William Lahey’s three-year evaluation into how the Province is following through on his Independent Review of Forest Practices in Nova Scotia finds only five of 45 recommendations have been completely implemented. Hear his reaction to the lack of progress.”
– Lahey forestry report author issues scathing update on lack of progress after 3 years
Michael Gorman · CBC News Nov 30, 2021. “William Lahey concludes Department of Natural Resources has yet to fully embrace ecological forestry”
Healthy Forest Coalition summary and comment
On FB, copied at the bottom of this page
Original Post
Posted on the Ecological Forestry website:
Independent Evaluation of the Forest Practices Review: recommendations and implementation of Ecological Forestry
Consistent with Recommendation 44 of the Forest Practices Review (2018), the Department asked William Lahey, President and Vice-Chancellor of University of King’s College, to conduct an evaluation of the Province’s implementation efforts. The evaluation had two components, 1) an assessment of the Province’s implementation progress and 2) a longer-term framework to guide the preparation of on-going evaluations to assess progress towards achieving the ecological model of forestry management in Nova Scotia as envisioned in the Review. The evaluation was completed in November 2021.
From the Executive Summary:
Implementation has been completed for five important recommendations…Much solid progress is also being made on five recommendations that are of fundamental importance to the overall implementation of the FPR…
None of the work underway on FPR recommendations has resulted in much if any actual change on the ground in how forestry is being planned, managed, or conducted, and I have no indication of when any of it will. From the information at my disposal, I am not able to conclude that much or any change has happened in how forestry is practised based on the work the Department has done on implementing the FPR. This is the overriding and central conclusion of this evaluation.
Combined with the fact that only five recommendations have been fully implemented, and that the implementation phase of work on recommendations has not started on roughly two-thirds of all recommendations, implementation cannot so far be judged a success.
Related Post on NSFN
Please, Prof. Lahey: issue your report on L&F’s progress in implementing your recommendations for Nova Scotia’s forests and forestry 2Sep 2021
NSFN, Sep 2, 2021
Thank you Prof Lahey. Thank you new PC Government for publishing this document.
I am hopeful that Prof Lahey’s comments will reset the dismal trajectory I foresaw for implementation of his recommendations that I depicted in a cover panel for this website a few days ago, copied below, but now removed as a cover panel.
Summary on Healthy Forest Coalition FB page Dec 1, 2021
This was already posted but it bears repeating: Lahey’s long-anticipated ‘Report Card’ on the implementation of the recommendations from his report “An Independent Review fo Forestry Practices in Nova Scotia” (a.k.a. “The Lahey Report”) is finally out:
https://novascotia.ca/…/Report_FPR_Evaluation_2021.pdf
There is much to digest within this 73-page document but here are some quotes that demonstrate the overall take of the ‘Report Card’:
“None of the work underway on FPR (Forestry Practices Report) recommendations has resulted in much if any actual change on the ground in how forestry is being planned, managed, or conducted…”
“From the information at my disposal, I am not able to conclude that much or any change has happened in how forestry is practised based on the work the Department has done on implementing the FPR. This is the overriding and central conclusion of this evaluation.”
“…..implementation cannot so far be judged a success.”
“It is a particular concern that forestry that is not ecological forestry continues to be conducted on Crown lands that will be largely reserved for ecological forestry once the triad is finally implemented on Crown land.”“It is now clear, however, that the interim retention policy does not come close to replicating the ecological outcomes expected from ecological forestry. It follows that the longer the delay in making the transition to ecological forestry, the greater the ecological loss in the parts of the forest that will eventually come under an ecological forestry regime. The situation requires urgent attention, out of the same laudable motivation that inspired the interim retention guidelines, until the new SGEM can be fully implemented.”
“It is not clear that the Department has embraced the ecological paradigm called for in the FPR. Instead, it appears to be still operating within a paradigm in which forest production and ecological systems are regarded as values to be balanced against one another, with the balance in favour of the former where the two come into essential conflict.”
This Reports adds a lot of weight to the argument that DNRR is structured in such a way that they face high levels of difficulty in reforming themselves, from the inside out, and may not be up to the task without a redistribution of their roles and responsibilities.