St. Mary’s River, Guysborough Co.
An Earth Day Gift: A New Freshwater Refuge for Wildlife
In celebration of Earth Day, the Nova Scotia Nature Trust announced new conservation lands on Hog Lake in Queen’s County, Nova Scotia. A haven for wetland-dependent wildlife including a family of nesting loons, the property also has potential habitat for the nationally endangered Blanding’s Turtle and Eastern Ribbonsnake.
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Jamie Simpson contends that clearcutting has “borealized” much of the Nova Scotian forest; it’s a concept accepted by at least some federal forestry scientists but not by NSDNR
Two woodlots in Nova Scotia, one involving clearcut forestry and promoting softwoods, the other involving selection management and maintaining a mixed, multi-aged Acadian forest.
Our legacy of past land-clearing for agriculture and our current use of widespread clearcutting has created conditions very favourable to boreal forest tree species {“borealization”], and indeed boreal forest species have flourished at the expense of our warmer-climate adapted trees. We have put our forests in an extremely vulnerable position. Even without climate change, we’ve created forests that are susceptible to greater damage from disease, insect outbreaks and windstorms. Add climate change and we may well witness a “perfect storm” of stresses on large areas of our forest.
Growing bigger, older trees: Multi-aged management of red spruce on private woodlot in Nova Scotia
The only place where employment has increased, when adjusted for the amount of area harvested, is in the wood product manufacturing industries and to a small extent in support activities for forestry. In other words, there is employment in the value-added sector.
“The removal of punitive duties on Nova Scotia softwood lumber exports was announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Commerce, after it ruled Nova Scotia’s lumber sector was operating in an open market rather than receiving an unfair subsidy.” Read more in the Chronicle Herald, Nov 2, 2017.
View also ‘A drain on businesses’: N.S. lumber producer pleased to see tariffs gone (CBC, Nov 2, 2017).
View Softwood Lumber posts for some recent history of the softwood lumber dispute.
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The covering web page for the Harvest Plan Map Viewer (HPMV) has been modified recently, and now outlines the overall process for approving harvests on Crown land.
It involves four steps:
Step 1. The Crown land Licensee develops proposed harvest areas and prescriptions based on Pre-Treatment Assessment (PTA) and the Forest Management Guides (FMG), subject to all requirements for operating on Crown lands.
Step 2. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) resource management professionals review every proposed harvest plan as part of the Integrated Resource Management (IRM) review process and determine if the plan is appropriate and meets all requirements for operating on Crown lands.
Step 3. Each proposed harvest area on Crown land is posted on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer (HPMV), an interactive web viewer, that enables the public to view and comment on harvest plans.
Step 4. Crown Land Licensees are notified if the proposed harvest plans are approved or if changes are required following the public comment period and an evaluation by DNR senior management.
More details are given for each step. View Harvest Operation Maps
This is a welcome clarification of the procedures. Continue reading
Not the best approach in an era of climate warming?
Click on image to view a larger version
In a paper published in Forest Ecology and Management in September and highlighted recently by a Canadian Press report (Oct 27, 2017), Anthony R Taylor of the Canadian Forest Service and six collaborators use a forest ecosystem simulation model to explore the impact of climate warming on the composition and growth of trees in the Acadian Forest Region under two climate change scenarios.
The eighteen most abundant tree species currently in our forests are included in the model. Only small changes in relative abundance of the different species are preedicted to occur over the short term (2011–2040).
Over the medium and long terms (2041–2100), the model predicts increasing relative abundance of warm adapted temperate species (American beech, red maple, red oak, white ash, and white pine) and reductions in the relative abundance of cold adapted boreal species (balsam fir, white, black and red spruces, eastern larch, jack pine, trembling aspen, and white birch) with the changes being most pronounced under the more rapid climate warming scenario.
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Following the critique of “misinformed local academics” just a few days ago, another letter expressing frustration with “bias and undue criticism of our [forestry] industry and practices” appears in today’s Chronicle Herald.
“My family has been involved in forestry for five generations and has contributed directly to our communities for well over 100 years…We selectively harvest our resources, where applicable, and in many cases, we clearcut where appropriate.
“…Those readers familiar with gardening will know that when a crop is mature and ready to harvest, and we are not educated and wise enough to do so, that which is left unharvested soon creates a blight on the fertile ground from which it has grown.
“This compares to our forests. Its products have a growth cycle and a shelf life. If left unharvested, soon a piece of fertile ground will become unusable for an extended time period. These unharvested forests have a very limited capacity for supporting wildlife and create ideal conditions for fires.”
Read more under Voice of the People – Oct 28, 2017: Forest stewards know best
Lumber rep goes after Nova Scotia’s “misinformed local academics”; pilot offers another view
In Voice of the People (Chronicle Herald Oct 23, 2017), Cassie Turple of “Ledwidge Lumber, Enfield”, goes after Nova Scotia’s “misinformed local academics”:
I read the story about the “Forest Funeral” in downtown Halifax and was surprised and dismayed by the quotes from some local academics who are simply misinformed, and then that misinformation gets spread.
1. We only harvest 0.78 per cent of Nova Scotia’s forested land annually.
2. The forest industry accounts for 11,500 jobs in this province.
3. The industry contributes over $2.1 billion to our economy annually.
…I could go on, but I digress. Have you been around this province lately? What do you see? We have so many beautiful forests.
View the complete letter at Forestry sector maligned (Chronicle Herald Oct 23, 2017)
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Naturalist Alain Belliveau has been concerned about harvesting in the Tobeatic Wildlife Management Area and realized that few people know what the Sanctuary / Wildlife Management Area is all about, so wrote an essay about it.
Alain appeals to Nova Scotians to express their views about the area and especially to let their MLAs know about them.
The essay is presented below, complemented with artwork and photos from Mark Brennan’s Tobeatic Sketches.
“John Pictou Carry”, Sporting Lake Stream, oil on birch panel by Mark Brennan, posted with permission of Mark Brennan.
An impressive anniversary is coming up in Nova Scotia, notable to anyone who enjoys the out-of-doors or simply the notion of areas being set aside for protecting our rich backwoods heritage, for wildlife to prosper and for Species At Risk to recover (and many have yet to do so). The first large wild spaces were safeguarded 90 years ago, and included the famed Tobeatic. Continue reading
Northern Pulp has not had an easy go recently. In September we learned that the Pictou mill had failed emissions tests and later the Premier expressed concern about the $697.50 fine. In June, there was an uproar over clearcutting on prominent vistas in the touristy Wentworth Valley which according to author/activist Joan Baxter “was on a 6,184-acre piece of land that Nova Scotians had financed for Northern Pulp.”
In an Op-ed yesterday, the director of corporate communications for Paper Excellence Canada (the owner of Northern Pulp) acknowledges the bad publicity but wants the public to understand that “There is another side of Northern Pulp — several, actually. One of dedicated, hard-working employees who take pride in their accomplishments” reminding us that “The team at Northern Pulp consists of over 300 people who, like their friends and neighbours, juggle work commitments while raising families, volunteering and contributing to their community in a meaningful way.”
Read more in OPINION: The other side of the Northern Pulp story by Kathy Cloutier (Chronicle Herald, Oct 20, 2017).
