There is more to reversing losses of forest and associated aquatic biodiversity in NS than simply reducing clearcutting
What we have now is a precautionary plan to protect wood supply in NS
UPDATE Also view: Need for Biodiversity Landscape Planning before finalizing HPF and Ecological Matrix components of the Triad, and for caution in selection of HPF sites in acid-stressed watersheds
A response to the High Production Forestry Phase 1 – Discussion Paper, from the Conservation Committee of the Halifax Field Naturalists
March 31, 2020
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The major cause for loss of biodiversity worldwide and locally is habitat loss and fragmentation. We are probably only beginning to the see the most extreme effects of it in NS: the local extinction or “extirpation” of species. An example: the mainland moose population seems to have collapsed; there is strong enough evidence that mismanagement or lack of management of habitat by L&F is the major cause that a group of naturalists have taken the province to court to force them to take action they were committed to take but didn’t.
But well before the total collapse of species, they become less abundant and less genetically diverse. Those of us of some age remember days when brook trout and salmon and insects and forest wildflowers and a wide range of forest birds were very much more abundant than they are today. (A smaller number of species actually benefit in some way from increased human interaction and have become more abundant, sometimes to the point they are damaging to ecosystems, e.g. bald eagles in NS).
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