Nova Scotia Christmas trees in the news

Posted on December 23, 2017 by admin

About 1.3 million Xmas trees are produced in NS each year, 95% of them exported, mostly to the Americas, but also to Asia. In Nova Scotia, discarded trees are being fed to a herd of heritage goats, keeping them healthy.

Nova Scotia Christmas trees generally hit the news this time of year. Last year, it was about research at the Christmas Tree Research Centre in Truro, their efforts to develop a SMART balsam fir, and their inadvertent discovery that LED Christmas lights are good for Christmas trees.

This year it’s about version 1.0 being ready to go to growers.

View Christmas tree that holds its needles longer one step closer to your living room
Emma Smith, CBC News, Dec 10, 2017

I can’t say I am excited about cloned trees as it seems to be a recipe for a quick take-down by pest or disease at some point. However, I wish it all well.

This story I found more enticing: Goats chow down on Christmas trees from Lunenburg, Mahone Bay by Andrew Rankin in the Chronicle Herald Business section, Dec 21, 2017
Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Nova Scotia Christmas trees in the news

Nova Scotia Premier on forestry, Boat Harbour, a “neutral shade of grey”

Posted on December 22, 2017 by admin

Chronicle Herald Editorial Team with Premier McNeil

The Chronicle Herald has been somewhat quiet on the forestry front for a few days, perhaps to give a little space for their coverage of the Premier’s views on all things. Videos from a lengthy CH editorial team sit-down with Premier McNeil are posted online, broken into 5 topics – Health Care – Boat Harbour cleanup
– Trade government investment, and NAFTA – Marijuana legislation – Forestry – Conduct in the media.

View VIDEO: McNeil sits down to talk health care, environment, forestry Chronicle Herald, Dec 21, 2017.

Jim Vibert’s assessment of the Premier’s views in today’s CH, which I read after making an abbreviated transcript of the Forestry section of the interview (below), rings true.

Continue reading →

Posted in Independent Review, Pulp & Paper | Comments Off on Nova Scotia Premier on forestry, Boat Harbour, a “neutral shade of grey”

Nova Scotia forests and forestry are in the news and cameras lenses as the Independent Review moves into Phase 2

Posted on December 17, 2017 by admin

Recent aerial photo by Scott Leslie of the East Kemptville mine near Yarmouth, across the 203 highway from the Tobeatic Wilderness Area. Although it closed in 1992 and it’s been 25 years, it’s hard to see any evidence of remediation.
Click on photo for larger version

About mines, pulp effluent, hemlock vampires, the state of the forest, land protection and the Independent Review deliberations

Sometimes my attempt to provide a “record of events, news and opinions on the subject of forests and forestry in Nova Scotia as they unfold, beginning on June 21, 2016″ (all admittedly biased) can be challenging. The last 10 days have been one of those times.

Here are some of the items that have caught my attention over the few days since my last post.

Mining versus protected areas, continued
Protesters object to development of Cape Breton mountain sacred to Mi’kmaq National Post, Dec 16, 2017

(The mountain) is our sacred place and it is home of our sacred being, to destroy that place for profit is the same thing as me going over to the Vatican and chipping off the gold, and the silvers and the rubies and the diamonds … and maybe taking a couple of Michelangelos home. – Elizabeth Marshall of Eskasoni First Nation

Also: Protesters gather, slow traffic to object mining projects on Kellys Mountain in Victoria County
Jeremy Fraser in Cape Breton Post, Dec 16, 2017.
Continue reading →

Posted in clearcuts, Conservation, Independent Review, Letters&Editorials, Old Growth, Parks & Protected Areas, Pests, Pulp & Paper | Comments Off on Nova Scotia forests and forestry are in the news and cameras lenses as the Independent Review moves into Phase 2

Editorials and letters about forestry in Nova Scotia continued..Dec 13, 2017

Posted on December 14, 2017 by admin

Einar Christensen offers “A hierarchy of sustainable forestry” & wonders about the make-up of DNR’s Science Advisory Committee


Looking like “a scene out of Second World War Europe”

Einar Christensen appears to have been following forestry issues for a while.

Writing an Op-ed in the Chronicle Herald (OPINION: A hierarchy of sustainable forestry), he comments that forest management in Nova Scotia “has been deteriorating for years but was really helped along by the former minister, Lloyd Hines”. He cites Hines’ opinion piece, A scientific approach to logging (CH, Nov. 5, 2016), as evidence.

Einar notes that Minister Hines “seemed to trivialize the role of clear cutting large areas of the province. Anyone who has flown over Nova Scotia would have seen first-hand how much of our previously forested landscape looks like a scene out of Second World War Europe. In many areas of the province, if you walk 50 metres away from a road or stream, what looks like solid forest turns into a desolated area that cannot support the forestry industry, let alone wildlife of any kind.”
Continue reading →

Posted in Independent Review, Letters&Editorials | Comments Off on Editorials and letters about forestry in Nova Scotia continued..Dec 13, 2017

Mining Association of Nova Scotia’s continues its aggressive campaign to undermine our protected areas

Posted on December 13, 2017 by admin

One response to MANS: Rally For Kluscap Dec 16th, 2017 – scroll to the bottom of this post for more details.


Are all protected areas ecologically unique? So asks MANS presenting a host of photos of clearcuts in protected areas as evidence that protected areas ar not special and should be opened up for mining.

Their photo evidence is quite a study in mis-representation. The GPS coordinates for the photos are not given. For those that could genuinely be in a Protected Area or Nature Reserve, the cuts would have been made before the area was formally designated; they are not continuing. Some are power line cuts.
Continue reading →

Posted in Conservation, Parks & Protected Areas | Comments Off on Mining Association of Nova Scotia’s continues its aggressive campaign to undermine our protected areas

Nova Scotia forests are not the only ones over-harvested, but are likely the most over-harvested in Canada

Posted on December 11, 2017 by admin

Four items in Tree Frog Forestry News today (Dec 11th, 2017) illustrate that concerns about over-harvesting of forests are hardly restricted to Nova Scotia.

Section of land just south of New Glascow, Nova Scotia, from map at forests.foundryspatial.com that visualizes forest changes in Canada from 1985 to 2011. I couldn’t find any equivalent to the density of harvests shown above outside of Nova Scotia.
Click on image for larger version.

LETTER: Timber companies have had their day in the sun
From reader Nick Chatten in BC Local News Dec 8, 2017:

Regarding the logging in watersheds, I advise everyone to have a look at the Google maps with the satellite view. Pan around the West Kootenays to areas like Nancy Greene park and you will see a lot of harvest. These guys have had their day in the sun and now they want to tip toe through people’s back yards. When I was in the Selkirk College Forestry program in 1986 we learned of the fall-down effect. Slocan Forest Products (remember them?) learned this effect and now they are a memory. Eventually, the mature timber that can be put through a sawmill diminishes because they are logging so hard.

I have to laugh that the government considers we are logging in a sustainable fashion: utter hogwash! We are harvesting fiber faster than it can grow back. Those trees WAY up the mountain on higher elevations will need 100 years or more to come back…These trees grew on shallow soils in a harsh environment. Sometimes they never come back, just a stunted, planted pine growing where it shouldn’t.

Continue reading →

Posted in clearcuts, Independent Review | Comments Off on Nova Scotia forests are not the only ones over-harvested, but are likely the most over-harvested in Canada

Scott Leslie’s clear-cut photos of Nova Scotia clearcuts

Posted on December 9, 2017 by admin

A picture is [sometimes] worth a thousand words; this is one of those times

Scott Leslie, a renowned Nova Scotia author and nature/wildlife photographer, was the guest speaker at the Thursday Dec 7, 2017 meeting of the Halifax Field Naturalists (HFN) which I attended; his topic: Untamed Atlantic Canada.

Scott’s photographs and reading from his latest book (Untamed Atlantic Canada) held us spellbound.

After the final questions about his presentation he asked if we would be interested in seeing some of his aerial views of clearcuts in Annapolis Co. and Cape Breton. HFN members and generally most of the visitors attending their meetings (which are open to the public) have a keen interest in forests and forestry, so there was little hesitation. We again sat spellbound, this time by some much less comforting pictures than those we had just seen.

Scott gave HFN a selection of the aerial photos to post on their website. The photos “speak volumes” as they say, in this case the volumes of wood that have been scraped wholesale off of our landscapes, leaving wildlife without homes, burning up carbon in the soil and who knows what else – even though the regulations, and in some cases even FSC standards, are being followed.

View Scott Leslie’s clearcut photos

Continue reading →

Posted in clearcuts, Forest Certification, Independent Review | Comments Off on Scott Leslie’s clear-cut photos of Nova Scotia clearcuts

Northern Pulp open house sessions & apparent behind-the-scenes-tactics apparently not working for them

Posted on December 9, 2017 by admin

It seems to come down to no pipe, no plant.

The effluent from the proposed new pulp effluent treatment plant would be released in the Northumberland Strait at approximately location X on the Google map above.
Click on image to enlarge (from Google Earth)

UPDATE Dec 12, 2017: DeMONT: Journalist, miners shabbily treated by big business by John Demont in the Chronicle Herald, Dec 12, 2017.
& in the same issue of the CH, a deAdder Editorial Cartoon; board members hold copies of The Mill, and their PR guy points to a graph of book sales on the smart board… “Here is where we at Northern Pulp tried to quash interest in this book”. (An earlier Bruce Mackinon ed cartoon featured a lobster in pot of pulp effluent.)

& Northumberland Fishermen’s Association will draft proposal opposing Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment facility
Sam Macdonald in The News Dec 12, 2017

UPDATE Dec 12, 2017: Two items in the Chronicle Herald
Sales, interest in The Mill rise after Northern Pulp tries to suppress book Report by Francis Campbell

Northern Pulp: with public money comes accountability Columnist Opinion by Dan Leger

& this one a couple of days ago in The Guardian (PEI): P.E.I. fisherman says meeting increased concerns over effluent dump in Northumberland Strait by Jim Day Dec 8, 2017.
——
Three open houses held earlier this past week (Dec 4,5 & 6) to inform the public and specific stakeholder groups about the proposed new pulp mill effluent treatment seem not to have convinced the people whose livelihoods and homesteads are most directly affected that all is OK.

Nor did some of the Mill’s apparent behind-the-scenes tactics. Extracts from some of the responses in the local press are cited below.

First Nation, fishermen distrust Northern Pulp treatment plan
Francis Campbell in the Chronicle Herald Dec 8, 2017
Continue reading →

Posted in Letters&Editorials, Pulp & Paper | Comments Off on Northern Pulp open house sessions & apparent behind-the-scenes-tactics apparently not working for them

Increasing carbon capture & storage should not be complicated for Nova Scotia

Posted on December 8, 2017 by admin

A letter in Voice of the People from Helga Guderley reminds us of Nova Scotia’s greatest assets for removing carbon from the atmosphere:

Wood volumes in a piece of SW Nova Scotia (above)
and in a piece of central NS (below)

…the best technology for reducing atmospheric CO2 was invented long ago. Trees, grasses, marine and terrestrial plants sequester atmospheric CO2 very effectively using methods perfected over millions of years. All we need to do to use this wonderfully evolved process is to keep or, even better, increase our forest cover.

Perhaps Nova Scotia could outlaw clearcutting and promote selection harvesting. Perhaps Nova Scotia could integrate carbon sequestration by forests into our cap-and-trade market. Perhaps Bill Lahey’s review of forestry practices could integrate the explicit benefits provided by standing, living trees into the decisions about whether and how trees should be harvested. – Helga Guderley Old-fashioned CO2 removal (CH, Dec 8, 2017)

Continue reading →

Posted in Biomass, clearcuts, Climate Change, Letters&Editorials | Comments Off on Increasing carbon capture & storage should not be complicated for Nova Scotia

Editorials and letters about forestry in Nova Scotia continued..7Dec2017: an appeal for co-existence of forestry, fisheries, agriculture and tourism

Posted on December 8, 2017 by admin

The effluent from the proposed new pulp effluent treatment plant would be released in the Northumberland Strait at approximately location X on the Google map above.
Click on image to enlarge (from Google Earth)
Fishers are concerned about impacts on lobster, crab, scallop, herring, and mackerel fisheries.

Like many Nova Scotians, an employee of Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation who felt compelled to write a letter to newspaper about the effluent issue has connections to forestry fishing and farming.

I’ve lived, gone to school, worked and volunteered in Pictou County almost my entire life. I grew up on a dairy farm in Scotsburn, learned about forestry at my father’s side and spent many a day and night on a fishing boat hauling lobster traps, shucking scallops and shaking a herring net, with my stepfather, grandfather and various other family and friends who own fishing gear.

On the mill effluent issue, she comments:
Continue reading →

Posted in Letters&Editorials, Pulp & Paper | Comments Off on Editorials and letters about forestry in Nova Scotia continued..7Dec2017: an appeal for co-existence of forestry, fisheries, agriculture and tourism