Our new premier will confront many crises that have been growing steadily in recent years. The plight of our forests will be among the most urgent because the consequences of reckless overharvesting will be with us for at least a century.
- The average age of our forests has been dramatically reduced, so that it is hard to find mixed-age stands, particularly on Crown lands.
- Even-age harvesting practices have destroyed important animal and plant populations.
- The Acadian forest which has given Nova Scotia a unique character is being systematically replaced, through government sponsored ‘silviculture’ programs, with boreal species like those found in the forests of northern Ontario and Quebec. Those species are preferred by the pulp and paper industry, but are unsuited to our soils and our native plants and animals.
- All of this has brought us a biodiversity crisis that is increasingly difficult to address. As we have seen in the dramatic decline of the mainland moose population, which cannot be turned around unless we are prepared to set aside large areas as reserved habitat. Something that the forest industry has been unwilling to tolerate.
- These radical changes adversely affect us. Rural economies are undermined by the loss of mixed-age, mixed species woodlands, and the growth of capital-intensive forestry which thrives only on low value wood that can only be used for biomass or for buiding projects using engineered woods. Traditional woodland recreation – hunting, fishing, hiking, camping – which also happen to be economically valuable – also suffers. The air we breathe, the climate itself, the water we depend on are all diminished.
None of these consequences of overharvesting has deflected the Department of Lands and Forestry from its mission – first laid out in the Forests Act of 1989 - to double forest production by 2025. Nor did two extensive public enquiries – the natural resource strategy consultation of 2008-9 and in 2018 Professor William Lahey’s critical review of harvesting practices - dent the department’s blind commitment to industrial forestry. Indeed, in 2019, the first full year after the government accepted Lahey’s report, some 12,395 ha. of Crown land were approved for harvesting (654 proposed cuts), and approvals for 2020 indicate that a larger area (15,343.9 ha. in 699 proposed cuts) will be harvested. An estimated 71.6 % will be ‘even aged’ treatments.
When you write to the press and the politicians, we suggest that you emphasize:
When you write to the press and the politicians, we suggest that you emphasize:
- The need for an immediate moratorium on all even-aged treatments on Crown land. This is urgently needed. It would not violate the Province’s commitments to companies granted cutting rights. It would force them to slow down their harvesting and to require their contractors to use harvesting equipment in an ecologically appropriate way. It would also be consistent with Lahey’s call for a return to uneven-aged treatments on Crown lands.
- Amend the objectives and purpose clauses of the Crown Lands and other forest-related acts to replace the current prioritization of timber production with a mandate to reflect the full range of values that the public attaches to our forests. This was recommended by Professor Lahey because the current wording legitimizes the harvesting practices that are destroying our forests.
- Appoint to key positions at LAF officials who understand the precepts of ecological forestry and are genuinely committed to implementing the Lahey recommendations.
- Ensure that LAF has the necessary resources and commitment to carry out the court-ordered implementation of the Endangered Species Act now and over the longer term.
- Insist that LAF comply with the government’s commitment to provide meaningful opportunities for peers and key stakeholders, including the general public, to be included in initiatives called for by Lahey. This would include the review and revision of the study of natural disturbance regimes.
- Mandate interdepartmental cooperation between LAF and the Department of the Environment, particularly re land use planning and synchronizing policies related to nature reserves, wilderness areas, parks, etc.