Words, rhythms and songs of the Forest Funeral at Province House, Nova Scotia, Oct 19, 2017

Posted on October 20, 2017 by admin

In case you missed it…


Top: Trombonist Danny Martin sets the tone (Chopin’s Piano Sonata No.2) for the procession. Mid: On to Province House. Bottom: Melissa Labrador, assisted by her children, performs a smudge

About 600 souls participated in a Forest Funeral on Thursday afternoon, assembling in the Grand Parade Square and proceeding to Province House, the air filled with the solemn notes of a Funeral March played on a trombone.

An open pine casket holding “match-stick”-sized logs was carried by six pall-bearers, while mourners carried (stuffed) animals of the Acadian forest.

The casket was set down at Province House, and the wildlife set out before it.

Dedications, music, song, prayers and testaments followed as listed below with the corresponding audio files.

The event was organized by the Healthy Forest Coalition and the Ecology Action Centre to highlight and mourn the losses of mature and old growth Acadian forest and associated wildlife due to extensive clearcutting over the last 50+ years. The clearcutting has taken place under the tenure of governments variously formed by the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP.

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Posted in Acadian Forest, Biophilia, clearcuts, Conservation, Mi'kmaq, NSDNR, Pulp & Paper | Leave a comment

A day of mourning for Nova Scotia’s forests & wildlife

Posted on October 19, 2017 by admin

Mourning Nature, work by Maria P

In an op-ed, Donna Crossland of the Healthy Forest Coalition writes about the losses being mourned at the “Forest Funeral” taking place today in Halifax.

When bobcat and fisher lose their homes through clearcutting, seldom can they move elsewhere to set up a new home range, as “elsewhere” is already occupied. Thus, they cannot find sufficient food and often starve.

Barred Owl in proposed Shingle Lake Nature Reserve, July 29, 2017. Clearcuts are scheduled nearby.

During their last days they may hide away to die slow, agonizing deaths. Wildlife biologist Soren Bondrup-Nielsen explains that we rarely witness their suffering because they tend to retreat to dense brush or other secluded locations. Scavengers quickly devour their remains. The relationship is simple: No forests, no wildlife…

View OPINION: Forest destruction takes tragic toll on wildlife by Donna Crossland in the Chronicle Herald, Oct 18, 2017.

The op-ed closes with an invitation to attend the Forest Funeral.

Below is a schedule for the event Continue reading →

Posted in Acadian Forest, Biophilia, clearcuts, Conservation, events, Mi'kmaq, NSDNR, Social Values | Leave a comment

Jamie Simpson on forests and forestry in Nova Scotia and the Forest Funeral

Posted on October 17, 2017 by admin

Jamie Simpson is a forester, environmental lawyer and author of two books on the Acadian forest

Don Connolly interviewed Jamie Simpson earlier today on CBC Information Morning about forests and forestry in Nova Scotia and the upcoming Forest Funeral. Below is an abbreviated transcript of the interview.

Intro: Jamie Simpson is fed up. He is a forester and an environmental lawyer. He is also the author of two books on Acadian forests. For years he has been trying to get the province to put an end to cc on crown land but he says the province is not listening so this week he has helped organize a public protest. It will take the form of a funeral procession for Nova Scotia’s forests.

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Posted in Acadian Forest, clearcuts, Economics, Mi'kmaq, NSDNR, Social Values | Leave a comment

Bob Bancroft on Rick Howe Show today to talk about purpose of the Forest Funeral

Posted on October 16, 2017 by admin

Bob Bancroft talking about cavity dwellers in a talk to the Friends of Redtail Society in 2013

The Rick Howe Show – Monday, October 16, 2017: 12 p.m. Conservationist and biologist Bob Bancroft is planning a symbolic funeral for the forest, he will be giving the eulogy at the Thursday ceremony. He’ll tell us more about the event to start out final hour.

Listen Live


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Rare gypsum karst forest in Cape Breton protected by NCC

Posted on October 12, 2017 by admin

Google Earth image of gypsum cliffs and forest at Cains Mt., C.B.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada announced yesterday that that it has “protected three extraordinary habitats totalling 274 hectares” in Cape Breton. Amongst them is a rare gypsum karst landscape at Cains Mountain, where 162 ha are being protected.

NCC’s Craig Smith described the area to CBC:

There are very steep gypsum cliffs, exposed gypsum cliffs, deep, deep, deep caverns and tunnels and cave systems under the ground”…Growing on top of the gypsum formations on Cains Mountain is a towering old Acadian forest, and the site supports about a dozen rare species.

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Posted in Acadian Forest, Biophilia, Conservation, Old Growth, Parks & Protected Areas, Private Woodlots | Leave a comment

Premier concerned that Northern Pulp fined only $697.50 for failing tests

Posted on October 11, 2017 by admin

Global News reports that Northern Pulp received a $697.50 summary offence ticket from Nova Scotia Environment for failing three tests out of the last 10 on its power boiler. The premier has “asked the department to review its summary fines as a result” and is quoted: “I think it’s an important time to look at those because there needs to be a deterrent. There needs to be a financial deterrent and I fully expect to hear from the minister and the department… Let them do their work and we’ll go from there.” Read more at Global News (Oct 10, 2017)

See also Northern Pulp Pictou mill still polluting the air (Post Sep 19, 2017)
—
Tip of the hat to Tree Frog Forestry News

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Nova Scotia Healthy Forest Coalition to hold a “Forest Funeral” Thurs Oct 19, 2017

Posted on October 11, 2017 by admin

As announced on the Forest Funeral Events Facebook page:

You are invited to mourn our forest losses with citizens from across the province.
Please come to pay your respects to the once great Acadian Forest.

An ‘open casket’ of tiny ‘logs’ will be followed by a procession of wildlife that have died through drastic losses of habitat. Pall bearers and forest mourners will walk from Grand Parade Square to the funeral ceremony at Province House. From there, the bodies will be carried to the very origin of forest mismanagement, the NS DNR office on Hollis Street.

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Posted in Acadian Forest, clearcuts, Conservation, Indigenous Peoples, Social Values | Leave a comment

More cutting near protected areas in Nova Scotia, now the Tobeatic

Posted on October 10, 2017 by admin

Landscape level planning for biodiversity conservation appears to be lacking in Crown land harvest decisions

Proposed harvests as shown on Harvest Plan Map Viewer
Click on image for larger version

A CBC story describes how “a proposed clearcut near Nova Scotia’s largest protected wilderness [the Tobeatic Protected Wilderness Area] is worrying environmentalists and nearby residents who say it’s a troubling sign of things to come.”

View Proposed clearcut near pending expansion of protected wilderness area sparks concern by Emma Smith, CBC News Oct 09, 2017.

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Posted in Acadian Forest, clearcuts, Parks & Protected Areas, Show Us the Science | Leave a comment

Canadian company patents new technology for monitoring GHGs

Posted on October 5, 2017 by admin

Could new technology result in penalties for practices that generate GHGs such as clearcutting and using primary forest biomass for bioenergy?

I have often wondered when science & technology will come up with much better means of monitoring GHG (Greenhouse Gas Emissions) balances than the laborious, assumption-laden auditing processes we rely on currently. A Toronto based company, dynaCERT Inc. (Carbon Emmision Reduction Technology), may have the answer in its Systems and Methods for Tracking Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated With an Entity. dynaCERT has filed a Provisional Patent Application for this technology in the U.S. From the Press Release:

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A brief history of recent times in Nova Scotia’s Acadian forest

Posted on October 5, 2017 by admin

Wentworth clearcut
Photo courtesy of Raymond Plourde

Writing in The Coast (Oct 5, 2017), author Joan Baxter outlines “The long history of Nova Scotia sacrificing its forests to big pulp, and why it has to end”

The coast obviously figures it is a topical issue: the print version (Oct 11, 2017) devotes the cover page and six pages to the article, with 3 colour photos, plus a colour photo on the cover page, and two more B&W photos.

Baxter begins with the highly visible clearcuts in the Wentworth area in June of this year, revealing that while Natural Resources minister Margaret Miller told CBC there was nothing the government could do because it was private land, it was land that “the people of Nova Scotia had helped foreign corporations purchase”. She goes on to provide the shameful details.

Then she goes back to the 1950s and the deals (giveaways) the Stanfield government made to lure pulp and paper to Nova Scotia and works forward, noting the deal Izaak W. Killam had obtained in the 1920s for the one paper mill (the Mersey Mill in Brooklyn) still in existence in the 1950s. (The giveaway mentality, however, goes back even further, to 1899 when Nova Scotia signed the Big Lease.) Continue reading →

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