Elmsdale Biochar initiative provides some good news on the forestry front, but we still need rigorous forest & forestry carbon accounting for Nova Scotia 28Dec2020

Posted on December 28, 2020 by admin

Biochar in preparation as a soil amendment. USDA Forest Service photo by Deborah Page-Dumroese posted  on Wikipedia .

UPDATE DEC 30, 2020: Another good news item involving Mr. Wilbur appeared in the news yesterday: view NS Nature Trust Wild Blue Announcement
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Kudos are due to oft-outspoken Robin Wilbur of Elmsdale Lumber for his seriously pursuing production of biochar from wood chips and low-grade wood, as reported by CBC: How biochar could be good business for N.S. lumber company Michael Gorman · CBC News Dec 27, 2020:

Elmsdale Lumber wants to rezone some of its property to make way for the construction of a biochar facility.

The process uses wood chips to create a type of organic charcoal using a process called pyrolysis, or heating the chips at extreme temperatures without oxygen.

“This technology from Europe came to us, we listened to a presentation and our team kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Well, why would we not look into this,'” company president Robin Wilber said in a recent interview.

The company has been exploring new opportunities for wood chips and low-grade wood since Northern Pulp, the largest consumer of such products in Nova Scotia, shut down a little less than a year ago. Wilber said it would augment other markets for chips, such as pellet production.
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Posted in Biomass, Climate Change, Economics, softwood lumber | Comments Off on Elmsdale Biochar initiative provides some good news on the forestry front, but we still need rigorous forest & forestry carbon accounting for Nova Scotia 28Dec2020

Nova Scotia Liberal Leadership race: a fake campaign call related to a candidate’s environmental positions 21Dec2020

Posted on December 21, 2020 by admin

Posted on Stop Spraying & Clear-Cutting Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia) this afternoon:

A woman called me this afternoon on behalf of the Kousoulis campaign. I debated whether to share this information publicly, but I know that a lot of you are also interested in the Liberal leadership race.

She asked me if he could count on my vote. I replied that I hadn’t decided whom to vote for yet. I said that I would like to see his environmental plan. She replied “he’s a business guy, not one of those environmental guys.”

I said that business and the environment could coexist but pursuing business with no regard for the environment has not served our world well.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” she asked. She said (roughly) that she and the campaign disagreed, that business should come first.
I told her that I saw things differently. I had hoped to have a chance to list which environmental issues I was concerned about but never got the chance.

Instead, she said, “I’m very pro mining and pro development across the board.”

Then she said, if we don’t make money from coal, mining, and development, “we couldn’t afford windmills and that other environmental-type stuff.”
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Posted in Social Media, Social Values | Comments Off on Nova Scotia Liberal Leadership race: a fake campaign call related to a candidate’s environmental positions 21Dec2020

“At least 8 arrests have happened in Moose Country” – XR Nova Scotia 15Dec2020

Posted on December 15, 2020 by admin

Blockade started on Oct 21 ends 55 days later with arrests & a new campout begins at Grand Parade in Kjipuktuk/Halifax

Extinction Rebellion Nova Scotia photo. Santa apparently an innocent bystander

From XR Nova Scotia, circa 4 pm:

“At least 8 arrests have happened in Moose Country! These brave forest/moose protectors have been filling the void as our provincial government shamefully thumbs a nose at the Species at Risk Act (among others) and now these folks are being charged with contempt of court, when the Liberal government should be held to task for allowing the destruction of the mainland moose habitat for ignoring the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia’s decision! Shame on our government!” Continue reading →

Posted in Acadian Forest, Conservation, Landscape Level Planning, Social Media, Social Values, WestFor | Comments Off on “At least 8 arrests have happened in Moose Country” – XR Nova Scotia 15Dec2020

39 years ago Digby East Fish and Game petitioned Nova Scotia Government not to build roads into moose lands now accessed by WestFor 15Dec2020

Posted on December 15, 2020 by admin

A document that sat “in a filing cabinet for almost 40 years” has come to light recently, and reveals the historic concern about protecting mainland moose and more broadly, our “last interior wilderness” in SW Nova Scotia. View post by Bev Wigney on Annapolis Royal & Area – Environment & Ecology (Public Facebook Group), or here

WestFor has finally made a statement responding to public concern about moose.
View Forest harvest and mainland moose in Digby County, NS, posted on SestFor website yesterday (Dec 14, 2020). It begins Continue reading →

Posted in clearcuts, Conservation, WestFor, Wildlife | Comments Off on 39 years ago Digby East Fish and Game petitioned Nova Scotia Government not to build roads into moose lands now accessed by WestFor 15Dec2020

The modest expectations of Northern Pulp one year later 13Dec2021

Posted on December 13, 2020 by admin

As we approach the one year anniversary of the Province’s decision to keep it’s promise to close Boat Harbour as scheduled, a reminder from Northern Pulp’s parent co., Paper Excellence:

Northern Pulp is safe from its creditors for another five months…The Nova Scotian taxpayer is its largest secured creditor – holding about $86 million in loans to five companies associated with the Pictou County Pulp Mill…

That $50 million pot set up by Northern Pulp’s parent company, upon which it has already drawn $15 million, comes with strings attached. The money is being provided in the form of advances based upon the following milestones being reached by December 2022.

  • An environmental approval to build a replacement effluent treatment plant
  • An agreement with the province to help fund its design and construction.
  • A court decision or negotiated settlement with the province paying lost profits and damages associated with the idling of the kraft pulp mill.

From Court extends Northern Pulp creditor protection
Aaron Beswick in the Journal Pioneer Dec 12, 2020

Read more in the Journal Pioneer

A letter to Santa Claus, perhaps. I hope he no longer resides in NS.



shopify analytics ecommerce

Posted in Pulp & Paper | Comments Off on The modest expectations of Northern Pulp one year later 13Dec2021

“What the morrow brings”: WestFor applies for injunction to stop Moose Protectors 10Dec2020

Posted on December 10, 2020 by admin

Now it is up to God, apparently, to Protect the Mainland Moose and the Moose Protectors – our government is not about to do so. 

UPDATE: N.S. judge issues temporary injunction against forestry protest aimed at protecting mainland moose habitat
By Michael Tutton The Canadian Press on CTV News DEC 11, 2020
UPDATE Dec 11, 2020. 7 pm: The Injunction was served this afternoon.
From the Front Line:

UPDATE: WestFor asks for injunction to remove protesters concerned about endangered moose
Emma Smith, Phlis McGregor · CBC News Dec 10, 2020
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Shared on Annapolis Royal & Area – Environment & Ecology (Public Facebook Group) late yesterday Evening


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Posted in Acadian Forest, Social Media, Social Values | Comments Off on “What the morrow brings”: WestFor applies for injunction to stop Moose Protectors 10Dec2020

Nature Nova Scotia on Moose Observations and Forestry in Kespu’ktwik 9Dec2020

Posted on December 9, 2020 by admin

Map by Shanni Bee, Conservation GIS Specialist
Click on image for larger version
Please note:
– This map brings together the work of several over the past few weeks. The volunteers collected observations and reviewed data to determine which areas should be protected as core habitat for Mainland Moose.
– This “Public Version Map” has locations purposefully skewed, making it of zero use to poachers, but still providing a powerful illustration of why it is so important to protect certain areas if we wish to halt the further decline of the Mainland Moose population due to habitat destruction

& The NatureNS petition  launched just 2 weeks ago now has 23,716 signees

December 4, 2020
Hon. Derek Mombourquette
Department of Lands and Forestry
3rd Floor, Founders Square
1701 Hollis St.
PO Box 698
Halifax, NS B3J 2T9

Dear Mr. Mombourquette,
Re: Species at Risk Mainland Moose
After conferring with a number of knowledgeable local citizens, including First Nations peoples, we have created the attached map of known mainland moose areas in western Nova Scotia. This is an endangered species.

Nature Nova Scotia respectfully requests that Crown (public) land areas within the 60² km zones delineated on this map be excluded immediately from any even-aged harvesting that is currently underway, or being planned.

Current provisions to protect mainland moose and their habitats are simply inadequate. Continue reading →

Posted in clearcuts, Conservation, L&F, Landscape Level Planning, Social Values | Comments Off on Nature Nova Scotia on Moose Observations and Forestry in Kespu’ktwik 9Dec2020

& On Stop Clearcutting Cape Breton: “Follow the new logging roads” 30Nov2020

Posted on November 30, 2020 by admin

A new Forest Watch group – Stop Clearcutting Cape Breton – emerged recently. A Public Facebook Group, it is A place for people from Cape Breton and the surrounding area to organize and share information related to the alarming rate of clearcutting happening on public lands in our region.

Reads the latest post, by Admin Adam J Malcolm:

“3121+ acres of crown land on the hills separating Marble Mountain from River Denys. Follow the new logging roads. Not terribly hard to tell what the plan is for this forest…These hills are drained through streams lined by some of the last truly old remnant hemlock forests I know of in the province outside of a national park.”

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Posted in clearcuts, Conservation, Ind Rev Post-Report, Social Media, Social Values | Comments Off on & On Stop Clearcutting Cape Breton: “Follow the new logging roads” 30Nov2020

“What will it take to get the Nova Scotia Government to obey its own Environmental Laws?” 29Nov2020

Posted on November 29, 2020 by admin

“Nova Scotia Forest Protectors show up in numbers to stand in solidarity with the Moose Country Blockade.

“What will it take for the Ministry of Lands and Forests to acknowledge our presence and respond to our requests for a meeting?

“What will it take to get the NS Government to obey its own Environmental Laws (as was ordered by the NS Supreme Court?)?”

– Rob Bright on Annapolis Royal & Area – Environment & Ecology (Public Facebook Group)

Photos by Betty Wright, shared on Annapolis Royal & Area – Environment & Ecology (Public Facebook Group)

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Posted in clearcuts, Conservation, Ind Rev Post-Report, L&F, Social Media, Social Values, Wildlife | Comments Off on “What will it take to get the Nova Scotia Government to obey its own Environmental Laws?” 29Nov2020

Irregular Shelterwood harvests still largely experimental on Crown lands 2+ years post Lahey Report 26Nov2020

Posted on November 26, 2020 by admin

From R. Seymour, Section 2.4 Ecologically Based Multi-Aged Silviculture in the Acadian Forest, in Research Addendum to A Natural Balance: Working Toward Nova Scotia’s Natural Resources Strategy 2010

UPDATE Nov 30, 2020:
In spite of the very limited practice of Irregular Shelterwood silviculture on Crown lands to date, Iain Rankin says “the new Forest Management Guide will result in the most substantive stand level changes in the matrix forest, and the work of the project team (with co-author Bob Seymour) has been very thorough. The Guide should be ready for implementation, in the next calendar year, after the public consultation period ends. It will shift the vast majority of prescriptions away from the single-aged clearcutting approach, to irregular shelterwood.”

Why am I skeptical that will happen any time soon? Well perhaps it will, but only after L&F/Big Forestry have staked out their High Production Forestry sites on the best remaining Crown forest so there is no slowdown in the clearcutting.
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Original Post
Irregular Shelterwood silviculture figured prominently in the the Lahey Report as practices that should be adopted in NS (also in the 2010 Natural Resources Strategy).

Yet 2+ years after the Lahey Report was submitted, this prescription remains a minor and not-reported-component of harvests on Crown land forests.

I sent the following question to Forestry Maps on Oct 16, 2020

On the HPMV, Irregular Shelterwoods, called for in the Lahey Review, are not shown as a category.

Are any of the ‘Shelterwoods’ shown in recent postings Irregular Shelterwoods?

Can you give me some examples?

Thx

Continue reading →

Posted in clearcuts, HPMV, Ind Rev Post-Report, L&F | Comments Off on Irregular Shelterwood harvests still largely experimental on Crown lands 2+ years post Lahey Report 26Nov2020