From the NSDNR Press Release:
Natural Resources Minister Margaret Miller has extended the time frame for the Independent Review of Forest Practices. The review, launched on Aug. 30, will be completed at the end of April.
University of King’s College president Bill Lahey, who is leading the review of forest practices, requested the extension, as more work is required to complete the report.
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I am hoping that once the report from the Independent Review of Forest Practices is in, FSC will move quickly to improve FSC standards without waiting for NSDNR to improve Crown land forestry standards.
Under the Chronicle Herald’s Voice of the People for Feb 16, 2017, [no longer available] Bob Bancroft reminds us that “recently the Nova Scotia government dropped FSC certification on public (Crown) lands in central and western Nova Scotia, proclaiming SFI to be the “new” standard”, a move he says amounts to “green-washing more environmental damage, and once again bowing to the will of the forest industry.”
Read more.[no longer available]
View also:
– Finally, a ray of light amid Nova Scotia’s forestry gloom?
Chris Miller and Matt Miller
– Government flip-flop on FSC Certification a major step backwards for public forests, EAC March 1, 2016
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Helga Guderley with anti-forest biomass petition at NS Legislature, Nov 1, 2016
UPDATE Feb 22, 2018: View also OPINION: Instant economic gratification killing the environment
by Soren Bondrup-Nielsen, Chronicle Herald Feb 20, 2018
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Helga Guderley, a retired but still very active biologist, was one of the founding members of the Healthy Forest Coalition and was the instigator of a petition against clearcutting for biomass that quickly garnered over 20,000 sign-ons in early 2016. She expresses some views on DNR Science in a recent op-ed, and in more detail in a recent submission to the Independent Review.
From:
OPINION: DNR’s ‘science-based’ forestry mantra is a smokescreen
HELGA GUDERLEY
Published February 13, 2018
In the following, I consider two important roles that forests play in areas outside of the review’s narrow terms of reference: mitigating climate change and favouring tourism. Furthermore, government claims that current forestry practices are science-based are missing a crucial point. Different assumptions and values underlie pure and applied science. Each can claim to be scientific, but their prescriptions are radically different. Rather than arguing whether one science is superior to another, our society needs to identify the core values that should guide our decisions as to how to manage our environment.
So reads an introduction by Woods and Waters Nova Scotia (public Facebook group) to a message and photos forwarded from a worker for a woodlot in Upper Rawdon, N.S.
“I work for a woodlot owner co-op that manages this lot in Upper Rawdon. One of the pictures shows hemlock biomass and the end result of the harvest. I don’t mind this wood going as biomass. It certainly won’t be going to the disaster in C.B. though. Taylor lumber has a small biomass plant at their mill and that is where this wood will be going. I’m not sure of the efficiency of their plant but I know it is a lot better than the one in C.B. and they aren’t clear cutting hardwoods to feed it. We also got some fine sawlogs off the lot and more importantly it made room for the best of the trees to keep growing.
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The diffuser for the new treatment system would be about here
Click on image to enlarge (from Google Earth)
Fishers in both Nova Scotia and PEI are concerned about impacts on lobster and other fisheries,
with good reason
A legislative committee hearing in Charlottetown was packed to overflowing on Friday for a presentation about the potential impact of a wastewater treatment plant in Nova Scotia on P.E.I.’s fishing industry.
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There continue to be unpleasant winds and waters of various sorts emanating from the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou.
Tim Bousquet writing in the Halifax Examiner cites investigative journalism by Linda Pannozzo as a followup of her earlier piece Dirty Dealing: Northern Pulp Mill and the province are set to roll the dice with Boat Harbour’s replacement, but a cleaner alternative exists
(Halifax Examiner, Nov 22, 2017) which was a comprehensive examination of the options for managing the effluent from the Northern Pulp mill.
Writes Bousquet about new info obtained by Pannozzo concerning the EA for the “proposed” effluent system: Continue reading
Shuttered plant in May 2017
Now Great Northern is advertising to hire a millright, a lead hand (Posted Feb 12, closes Feb 19, 2018; start date March 3, 2018) and other positions.
View also ‘Looks like the Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, pellet plant will reopen
Post, Aug 12, 2017
Possibly in a Game Sanctuary near you
An article in the Chronicle Herald today provides some of the history of our Game Sanctuaries and highlights the fact that except where they overlap with formally protected lands, clearcutting and mining can still take place; hunting and trapping cannot.* The Game Sanctuaries can encompass both private and public lands. View Nova Scotia’s game sanctuaries protect game, but not their habitat by Aaron Berwick, Chronicle Herald, Feb 12, 2018.
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*However muzzleloader, bow and crossbow appear to be permitted in the Liscomb Game Sanctuary, and Chignecto Game Sanctuary, perhaps others.
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Choices: two approaches to forest management in Nova Scotia; one could benefit financially from carbon offsets AND conserve biodiversity, one would not
The conflict over clearcutting in Nova Scotia could hardly be presented more graphically than in the poster above, which I just received.
In May I posted an item about proposed clearcuts near the Loon Lake Nature Reserve in Guysborough Co. Although many protests were likely sent in to NSDNR, looking at the Harvest Plan Map Viewer now suggests they had little if any effect, and the proposed cutting is taking place now much to the chagrin many who know and love that area, and threatening the integrity of the Loon Lake Nature Reserve.
View More cutting near Nova Scotia Protected Areas…now Loon Lake Nature Reserve (Post May 24, 2017). Continue reading
Why denigrate someone who hugs a tree?
Writes Peter Ritchie in COUNTERPOINT: Environmental activism a broad-based movement, not a ‘tight-knit posse’ (Chronicle Herald, Feb 9, 2018):
I’d like to suggest to Mr. Black that the “tight-knit posse” of which he speaks is actually a steadily growing, provincewide movement of like-minded, educated, and scientifically-informed citizens who have had their fill of how this province “takes care of business.” We are not a ragtag group of tree-huggers trying to stifle economic growth through wide-eyed, misplaced environmentalism.
Ritchie goes after Black on his facts, e.g. Continue reading
