Day 79 “Another wild storm, warm and windy this time…In the afternoon a herd of deer – two adult does and five youngsters – came over the bridge then headed off into the remnant of old forest left along Beal’s Brook. They need mature evergreens for shelter and there are precious few left around here…How dare the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables take so little care of wildlife? …The company of like-minded people makes this struggle a joyful one.”
Today is Day 82 at the Last Hope for Wildlife Encampment on the Crown land block AP068499 Beals Meadow in Annapolis Co.
So far, the neighbours haven’t complained!
There’s much that the more timid or less-able-to-travel of us can learn about the site, the encampment and the issues – not just about that site but about forests and forestry more broadly in NS – by following posts on the FB page for Extinction Rebellion Mi’kma’ki / Nova Scotia.
It comes and goes in the press. I try to keep abreast of it all on a page on Nova Scotia Forest Notes:
Current Issues/AP068499 Beals Meadow.
And I am working on a series exploring some of the issues raised by the folks at the Last Hope Camp, so far I have made two posts:
Jan 27, 2022:
Jan 23, 2022:
–On logging of Crown land parcel AP068499 Beals Meadow, Nova Scotia: 1. Google Earth and Global Forest Watch images reveal extent of clearcutting in the vicinity 23Jan2022
Post on NSFN “Exploration of the circumstances surrounding the decision to log AP068499 Beals Meadow raises more questions than answers. NRR could provide at least some of the answers.”– On logging of Crown land parcel AP068499 Beals Meadow, Nova Scotia: 2. Highgrading at the Landscape Level 27Jan2022
Post on NSFN ““Logging the Best and Leaving the Rest” is occurring on the Crown lands all over the province including the area of AP068499 Beals Meadow. It is “Highgrading at the Landscape Level”
The third one has been in the works for some time, and sometimes I get discouraged by the nothing-really-changes messages that come from or don’t come from our Department of Natural Resources/Lands and Forestry/ and now Natural Resources and Renewables and the march of Big Forestry, now promoted by a new quasi-governmental organization, the FSC (- no NOT Forestry Stewardship Council, but the Forestry Sector Council – view NSFN post July 1, 2021).
But then I read an update about life and thoughts at the Last Hope Encampment, and ‘keep on truckin’ without complaint.
Another inspiration has been the verses composed by Daniel Baker, an Annapolis Co. man who recounts that he and Randy Neily* “have been fishing up there since we were in our early teens, it’s a beautiful canoe trip, this year it will be 50 years for me”. Some of those I am posting at nsforestnotes.ca/Biophilia/Daniel Baker.
*It was Randy Neily who initially raised concerns about logging planned for Crown land block AP068499 Beals Meadow.
I have dubbed Daniel the ‘Poet Laureate’ of Beals Brook. Unfortunately, his fishing success has apparently declined following clearcuts in the area (see NSFN Post Feb 7, 2022), no surprise to most of us.
In the course of trying to learn more about AP068499 Beals Meadow, I have been looking at a lot of maps, now compiled in one place at nsforestnotes.ca/Current Issues/AP068499 Beals Meadow/Maps.
They tell quite a story, one that no one would have paid much attention to if it weren’t for Randy Neily, Extinction Rebellion Mi’kma’ki / Nova Scotia, and the folks at the Last Hope for Wildlife Encampment.