Medway Community Forest Cooperative has several forest parcels listed for approval. They appear on the most recent HPMV (Harvest Plan Map Viewer) map as of mid January 2025. It's good to see a Crown Land licensee provide the kind of info to the public and invite comment, as seen on their website page about the parcels. Here's a screen grab of part of the page. You can read the whole page, see some short videos of and also maps of the parcels on the MCFC website at this link:
https://www.medwaycommunityforest.com/blog/harvest-block-december-2024
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by Helga Guderley About 10 years ago, a large area across the inlet from my house was clear cut, despite a massive letter writing campaign, a petition signed by a couple thousand citizens and a strong response from the tourism industry. In response to the public outcry, small changes were made to the cut blocks, including not using the rail trail as a route for removing the wood. Above and below are two photos taken directly after the logging. A much larger area was cut north of the ridge, towards Highway 103. The massive road (along which the logs are piled) is now unusable, as it is cut off from other roads by the access road to exit 5a. Ten years later (Jan 2025), the area has begun to heal, but regrowth is limited: some alders and birches, maple shoots, fir and spruce seedlings. The proximity of older trees downhill from the cut areas may have helped the regeneration, but the high coastal winds have blown down much of the ridge of high trees that was essentially a beauty strip to hide the far larger clear cut further north. DNR scientists say regrowth is very fast in this coastal area. I wouldn’t want to see slower growth. Helga Guderley is a retired professor of Biology, having worked at Université Laval for 30 years. She has served as an adjunct at Dalhousie for 14 years. She is a founding member of the Healthy Forest Coalition, and has taken the health of Nova Scotia's natural environment, in particular its biodiversity and forests, to heart since retiring here in 2010.
CBC RADIO -- ATLANTIC VOICES: This is an episode about protecting private woodlots from becoming clear cut or mismanaged. Interviews with: Dale Prest of "Growing Forests" talking about how, since 2022, they raised 1.1 millions dollars from 100 small private investors to purchase 900 acres of forest which will be used for ecologically managed forestry and carbon offsets for carbon sequestration. The other part of the interview is with woodlot owners who are participating in the Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust, ensuring that they woodlot will be preserved as a "forest" into the future. This episode is available as a podcast at this link:
it-s-literally-life-protecting-private-woodlots-audios-mp3_rf_138495195_1.html by Nina Newington “It could take an old field a thousand years to get that pit and mound topography,” said Whitman. “In managed forests you rarely get that, because large trees are cut before they can fall down.” * Preparing to give a talk about Old and Old-Growth Forests at the first SOOF Soup Sunday of the year, I came across that quote. It brought into focus a feeling that has grown stronger the more time I have spent exploring the old forests around Goldsmith Lake: my feet recognize old-growth just as much as my eyes do. Often, in very old forest, instead of walking along, stepping over the odd branch or tree trunk, my feet are either picking a zig zag course between the little ridges or climbing up and down, up and down, up and down, crossing those ridges which aren't so much ridges as elongated mounds. There are not the bouldery forest floors anyone who wanders the woods on the South Mountain is familiar with. There may be rocks around but they are not what form the mounds. Sometimes the mounds are like ripples in the forest floor, running more or less parallel to each other. At other times they are more jumbled. There's a name for this shaping of the forest floor: pit and mound. It is created when trees uproot. We've all seen blown over white spruce, the fan of their roots suddenly at right angles to the ground. Where the roots were, there is now a shallow pit. When those roots rot down, along with whatever soil and stones still cling to them, they form a mound. The roots on an uprooted 60-year-old white spruce don’t form much of a mound. It will erode away quickly. The kind of pit and mound topography that sticks around for 300 to 500 years or more is only created when very large trees are uprooted. What causes large old trees to fall over, tearing their roots free of the soil? Usually very strong winds, sometimes ice storms. Major hurricanes in Nova Scotia’s history have left their mark on the forest floor in this way. When many of those elongated mounds in the forest floor run parallel to each other, this is the signature of a major storm. I'm not good enough at reading the forest floor yet to be able to identify places where pit and mound tells the tale of a particular storm. But I can do some basic math. When I stand in front of a yellow birch that is 80 cm in diameter and about 300 years old, and that yellow birch is growing on top of a mound created when a tree that was, in all probability, at least as big and as old, fell over, I have a pretty good idea that I'm standing somewhere that has been forest continuously for more than 600 years. Even if the tree that formed the mound was a mere 150 years old, well, 450 years later takes us back to 1575. Pre-colonization. Back to a time when the people living here treated the forest and its inhabitants as relations, not resources. The odds are good, then, that this forest floor with its pit and mound has been forest floor for thousands of years. Trees have grown and died, grown and died, many of old age, some perhaps harvested by Indigenous people, others blown over when a major storm struck. The forest lived on, until the settlers arrived and the felling and burning and plowing and felling again began. The pit and mound under my feet tells me that this particular ground was not plowed. There was probably some logging. Fires may have burned here. Storms certainly rampaged through. But even if most of the big trees blew down in a hurricane, as long as no-one came and hauled out all the wood, the ecological continuity of the forest lived on. In the soil, fungi and microbes continued to cooperate and compete, trading information, groceries and medicines, linking tree to tree. It is this continuity my feet feel, entering ancient forest. As magical as it is, when I greet a grandmother yellow birch, to let my eyes travel up and up her trunk, I love to look down too, to where, so often, her toes are showing - the tops of her roots exposed as the mound where she germinated slowly erodes. ***** Nina Newington is a writer, gardener and forest protector. She lives with her wife on the North Mountain in Kespukwitk, District 1 of the seven traditional districts of Mi’kma’ki. She is president of the Save Our Old Forests Association and a member of the Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova Scotia. In 2024 she spent the better part of 6 months at Lichen Camp, on a logging road in the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area, documenting species at risk and identifying old growth forest stands. **Andrew Whitman at the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, cited by Joe Rankin in “Old Growth” Forests Defined by Key Ecological Characteristics on Forests for Maine’s Future (Dec 20, 2016)
With thanks to David Patriquin, http://nsforestnotes.ca/2019/02/04/if-an-old-growth-stand-blows-down-is-it-still-old-growth/ Mayflower (Epigaea repens). January 24, 2025 by Helga Guderley In winter, most of our leafy plants have lost their leaves as a protection against the freezing, damage and desiccation that winter conditions bring. But, walking in Nova Scotia's woods in winter shows us many leafy plants that keep their leaves. For some, like Sheep Laurel (Kalmia angustifolium), the leaves look a bit sad, hanging down as if they were thirsty and waiting for rain. But for others like the Mayflower (Epigaea repens), the leaves are beautifully upright, looking ready to go, preparing for spring flower production. Having a physiological bend, I wonder how Mayflower leaves keep so healthy and well over the winter. They do have waxy, leathery leaves, and they are low to the ground, both means of limiting water loss. Do they photosynthesize during warmer periods? For that they need to exchange gases, and therefore risk water loss. A close mycorhyzial interaction is crucial for the plant's health, making it difficult to transplant. One thing is clear -- seeing these Mayflower plants reminds me that spring is soon to come.
* * * * * Helga Guderley is a retired professor of Biology, having worked at Université Laval for 30 years. She has served as an adjunct at Dalhousie for 14 years. She is a founding member of the Healthy Forest Coalition, and has taken the health of Nova Scotia's natural environment, in particular its biodiversity and forests, to heart since retiring here in 2010. The Center for Northern Woodlands Education's winter online newsletter has a great article on the impact of heavy rain on upland forests. As is mentioned in the article by Alexandra Kosiba, the incidence of heavy rainfalls is increasing and likely to worsen here in the northeast. That can result in serious damage to forests. See the article for more information and ideas for mitigating the consequences of heavy rain. Northern Woodlands online articles are usually not behind a paywall, so this link should take you directly to the article.
https://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/heavy-rains-forests ![]() CBC ATLANTIC -- JANUARY 20, 2025 Scientists from across Atlantic Canada are focusing on ways to fight back against invasive pests and prepare for the effects of climate change, including the increased threat of wildfires. They met in Charlottetown to talk about all the research they're doing to keep forests healthy. Nancy Russell went to the workshop to find out more. LINK TO VIDEO ON CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6616694 Have you seen Northern Flying Squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) in your woodlot? I always wondered if there were any in my forest, but thought there was no way to be sure. However, a couple of weeks ago, I put up a suet feeder for the Hairy, Downy and Pileated Woodpeckers. I set up one of my trail cams to photograph the birds. What a surprise when I discovered that there were Flying Squirrels coming to the feeder at night. I've been using trail cams to survey for wildlife in my woodlot for the past year. So far, I've had Bobcat, Fox, Coyote, Deer, Raccoons, Skunks, and Red, Grey and Flying Squirrels show up on the photos and videos taken by my trail cams. Great way to survey for wildlife.
Bev at Round Hill, NS. |
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