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by Nina Newington  In mid-January I posted More on Nova Scotia DNR’s Zombie Forest Harvest Plans on Nova Scotia Forest Matters. The piece ends:
Now Houston’s government is trying to limit the public’s ability to use Freedom of Information requests (FOIPOPs) to find out what the government is up to. If passed, Bill 1 would allow government department to refuse requests they find ‘trivial, frivolous and vexatious’, ‘too broad’ or likely ‘to impede operations.’ Would that be operations like logging old to old-growth forest within the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area? The peninsula between Corbett and Dalhousie Lakes, for example. It is clear that DNR, after a brief and welcome turn towards greater transparency in 2022-2023, has retreated into its black box. They have not replied to a December 19, 2024 email requesting information about these harvest plans. No logging has taken place so far. In the absence of any response, a new FOIPOP should reveal whether plans have changed in light of public attention and the identification of 8 Species at risk lichens in the zombie cutblocks.
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PREVIEWS of the first two parts in an ongoing series by Nina Newington, concerning 3900 hectares of Crown Land around Goldsmith Lake in Annapolis County. The series appears on Nova Scotia Forest Matters. CLICK ON EACH PREVIEW to go to the FULL ARTICLE on Nova Scotia Forest Matters.   by Helga Guderley  How do deer keep warm in the winter? Winter is a hard season. While we relish going for a walk or ski in the snow, enjoying the changes in our familiar landscapes, most of us can warm up in our cozy homes afterwards. We enjoy our parkas and warm boots, but how do deer manage? Deer maintain their body temperature at 37C, just like us. To keep their core at 37C when experiencing subzero temperatures, they use several approaches. First, they increase their insulation. In preparation for winter, deer gradually change their coats to have thicker, longer and darker hairs and grow a thicker undercoat. If needed, they make “their hair stand on end” to trap more air in their coats and insulate better. Oil glands help their coats shed water. Choosing protected areas as dens is crucial to overwintering survival. Deer use counter-current heat exchangers to prevent blood from the extremities from decreasing core temperatures. Deer legs are primarily composed of bone, tendons and skin; tissues that can withstand cooler temperatures than the vital organs. Blood destined for the legs leaves the central core in arteries that run right next to the veins that return blood from the legs to the body. The blood that has cooled in the legs warms up before entering the central circulation, whereas the outgoing blood is cooled. Deer reduce their activity in winter, but they do browse on available plants (the yew and rhododendrons in my garden are very popular!) to obtain energy and nutrients for their organs and for their microbiome. Under harsh winter conditions, wild ruminants may break down their organs (muscle in particular) to provide nitrogen to the microflora in their rumen. This ensures that when food becomes available in the spring, they can digest it properly. Even though it looks uncomfortable to spend winter out in the elements, deer have clearly figured out how to do it! 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.
by Mike Lancaster  Chainsaw Elegy The frost hangs heavy on the spruce boughs, A cushioning silence stretched between each trunk, Each reaching, needled bow, and every snow-covered limb. Beneath my boots, the frozen ground, shielding roots, Protecting soils, and small creatures from harm during their winter slumber. The saw ignites, a bitter hymn, Its rasping voice against the cold, A blade that sings of loss, care, cost, Of benefit and profit, death, stewardship, and history. Each measured cut, a wound, a gift, Our future is placed in calloused hands. I love conducting chainsaw-based forestry operations in winter. For one thing, it’s cold. Your saw, equipment and gear, and everything that you require for a day can weigh as much as 35 kg (+- 80 lbs.), so colder temperatures are most welcome if you have a good distance to cover on foot. You might feel exhausted by the end of the day but it’s a good exhaustion; both body and mind know that they’ve completed their tasks the right way. It is a feeling that is satisfying in a way that cannot be described, it must be experienced. Another major benefit is that when the ground is frozen and covered by a thick blanket of snow, it is the best time of year to avoid damages to soils, plants, tree roots, and everything that lives amongst them. Conducting forestry by chainsaw has become a diminishing skillset over the decades as hard-working folks and their saws have largely been replaced by big machines that can do the work of more than 10, requiring just 1 to operate them. There are still holdouts, dedicated to their craft, doing forestry in a way that is increasingly seen as outdated, with a dogged, almost romantic, desire to make a living off the forests they love without overly harming them. These are the folks that we need to support, lifting them up as examples of the value-added, reduced-impact forestry that we wish we could see more of across Nova Scotia. What is lost in the drive to maximize efficiency and profits goes beyond ecological consequences to the realm of human experience. It is easier to maintain a connection to the forest when you are touching it with your hands, not through a joystick. When we walk in the forest we hear, smell, and experience it in a way that is not accessible when we are in the enclosed cab of a harvester. Let us not be divided by the rhetoric of the industrial lobbyists that say those who advocate for this vision are “anti-forestry”. Let us support small-scale operations and producers and ecologically-minded initiatives like the Mi’kmaw Forestry Initiative and Medway Community Forests Co-Op. We have lost much of our collective connection to the forests. Let's get it back. Mike Lancaster spends the majority of his time filling his various roles within the nonprofit world; he is the Executive Director of the St. Margaret's Bay Stewardship Association, Coordinator of the Healthy Forest Coalition, Vice Chair of the Medway Community Forest Co-op, and Stewardship Coordinator of the Woodens River Watershed Environmental Organization. He is also the proprietor of a small business that conducts forest and forestry consulting, assessments, and applications.
Mike's work has taken him all across Nova Scotia as he seeks to improve his understanding of the Wabanaki-Acadian forest ecosystem and how to integrate an increased emphasis on conservation, community, and resource stewardship into public policy. Saltwire published this letter on February 2nd. It was written a week earlier. The need to drop divisive political tactics so that Nova Scotians -- and Canadians -- can confront the threats that face us is even more compelling now.
What a remarkable letter Tim Houston just sent his caucus. Remarkable, first, because it bears no resemblance to the platform they ran on two months ago. Healthcare, housing, affordability are so yesterday. Instead we are to pin our province’s health and prosperity on … resource extraction. Wait. Haven’t we been here before, and before, and before? Northern Pulp, anyone? Secondly, panicking in the face of threats is no way to lead the province. Legislated commitments to protect nature and green our grid can’t just be abandoned. The PCs have no mandate to roll back environmental safeguards such as the fracking and uranium bans. The third and perhaps most unsettling aspect of Houston’s letter, is its divisiveness. It invents a category, the 2% – ‘special interests’ — versus the 98% whose ‘bread and butter concerns’ should be listened to. By ‘special interests’ Houston does not seem to be referring to corporations, who have long had the ear of government in this province, but to people who care about our home. Very well, I confess, I have a special interest. I have a special interest in maintaining a livable planet. Nowhere in his lengthy letter does Houston refer to climate change or nature loss. Instead he describes possible reserves of gas and coalbed methane as “opportunities.” Opportunities for more deadly floods, wildfires, droughts and storms. Catastrophes that will empty our coffers faster than we can fill them. Doubling down on the practices that got us into this mess is no solution. To find a way forward we need to say yes to science and Indigenous knowledge. Treating nature as a relation not a resource is the first step in creating an economy that exists within ecological boundaries while also meeting the needs of all Nova Scotians. How best can we care for each other and our home? This is the great challenge. If we tackle it with energy and courage and kindness, with ingenuity and respect for each other, then our province can be a beacon of sanity in a crazy world. Nina Newington Mount Hanley |
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Our forests can again become a great ecological and economic asset for Nova Scotia.
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