WestFor defended
Western Crown lands, modified from CPAWS map (2012)
The author, whose name is cited at the end, fails to mention that he is co-owner of one the mills in the WestFor group.
Odd: the general manager for WestFor, likewise didn’t state his affiliation in an op-ed a while back.
As well as in op-eds and letters to the editor, more voices expressing concern about the state of Nova Scotia forests or simply a love of the Acadian forest are appearing in the social media. A few that I have come across recently are highlighted below.
Blackburnian Warbler photographed by Angela Granchelli
Of wood and warblers: musings on my upcoming 3rd spring migration season as a birder in Nova Scotia
Angela Granchelli writes her blog Atlantic Canada Birding as an “independent travelling sales representative with a large geographical area [who finds] birding a great way to unwind after a day of sales calls”.
She was inspired to write about wood warblers after attending Donna Crossland’s presentation to the Nova Scotia Bird Society on March 23. She compiled a list of the 22 wood warblers that breed in Nova Scotia and their preferred vegetation; she also lists “vagrant” visitors. Continue reading
“Call of the Forest comments on the state of the world’s old growth forests and reminds us that trees provide emotional and physical benefits to those ever in its presence.
“Still left out in the dark, however, are Nova Scotia’s private wood lots owners”
Well before the American election, our softwood lumber trade with the U.S. (worth circa $85M to Nova Scotia, and $4.6 billion to Canada at large) was on shaky grounds. The last softwood lumber agreement ran out Oct 12, 2015, and the subsequent one-year litigation standstill period ran out a year later. Already the U.S. International Trade Commission has said that Canadian lumber is “subsidized and sold in the United States at less than fair value”, causing harm and the U.S. Commerce Department is conducting anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations. (CBC, Jan 6, 2017).
With Trump’s America First policies, the old arguments of the benefits of trade for both sides hold much less weight; Canadians will have to demonstrate that U.S. imports of Canadian lumber increase jobs in the U.S., e.g. by lowering costs and stimulating U.S. housing and showing that those benefits exceed losses in competing (but more expensive) U.S. lumber suppliers. Continue reading
Negotiations with the Mi’kmaq community are required and appropriate.
Western Crown lands, modified from CPAWS map (2012)
An article by Brittany Wentzell in LighthouseNOW, a Bridgewater and Lunenburg-based newspaper, provides some new info about the pending Forest Utilization Licence Agreement (FULA) that would give a consortium of 13 mills (“with WestFor”) access and a lot of management control over the Western Crown Lands for the next 10 years.
The online version opens with an image of the letter sent by the County of Annapolis to Premier McNeil on March 3 (view post Mar 8, 2017).
Continue reading
View The Great American Stand: US Forests & The Climate Emergency” by Bill Moomaw and Danna Smith, Dogwood Alliance Media Release, Mar 21, 2017. The report was released on the International Day of Forests.
Continue reading
Are tall structures made of wood in our future?
Also view:
Good news story on wood products, Nova Scotia
(Post Mar 18, 2017)
New wood construction opportunities for Atlantic Canada (Post Mar 6, 2017)
From molecules and cells to trees, forests, and tall buildings made of wood (Post Dec 22, 2016)
ADDED April 4, 2017: Tristan Cleveland: Why six-storey wooden buildings are good news for Halifax
Halifax Metro News, Apr 3, 2017.
Montreal based Resolute Forest Products’ suit related the Dexter government’s deals with the Port Hawksbury Paper (PHP) mill continues. View US paper company claims $52 million under NAFTA (Printing Industry news, March 8, 2017).
With the Trump government wanting to scrap or change NAFTA this has come at an interesting time. Canada has counter claimed that the US company has taken too long to file there for it should be tossed out. It is expected in the current US political environment that more US companies will be paying more attention to the NAFTA deal. What effect this will have on the Canadian printing industry has still to be determined.
“The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Forests (IDF) in 2012. The Day celebrates and raises awareness of the importance of all types of forests. On each International Day of Forests, countries are encouraged to undertake local, national and international efforts to organize activities involving forests and trees, such as tree planting campaigns. The theme for each International Day of Forests is chosen by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests. The theme for 2017 is Forests and Energy.” View short video at www.fao.org/international-day-of-forests/en/
A google search failed to reveal much uptake of this celebration in Canada, but I was pleased to see Stanley Park being celebrated by the Stanley Park Ecology Society as a remnant coastal rainforest.
The short FAO video espouses forest bioenergy in all its forms, which made me cringe. It has not gone unnoticed otherwise: Continue reading
Updated Mar 19, 2017
“Dow and Duggan Log Homes have created a new process of constructing logs to be used in the building of new log houses” and are seeing “robust and growing revenues.” View Local log home manufacturer shipping closer to home amid EU turbulence (CH, Mar 13, 2017)
“They’re pretty good,” Pure Nature Developments’ president said in an interview Monday. “They’re laminated beams, glued together, so they don’t twist and turn . . . and they’re kiln-dried.” In its manufacturing facility on Prospect Road, Dow & Duggan’s crew of 10 workers combines parts of six logs, using glue and pressure to create each log or beam of 10 inches in diameter. “In Eastern Canada, nobody else does a 10-inch log and you have to have minimum of a 10-inch log to meet the new standards,” said Dow.
