When the Nova Scotia Legislature met for its 2018 Spring session the HFC prepared a series of weekly briefing memos, which we hoped would alert them to the serious issues affecting forest policy.  In  March 2021, the legislature has again reconvened and the HFC has produced another set of briefing notes to prepare MLAs for discussions on forestry.

​At the same time we circulated the memos to our supporters, through Forest Alerts, and encouraged them to take up these issues with their MLAs and/or in the local media. To learn how to contact your MLA, click here.

2021 Briefing Notes

Nova Scotia provincial Crown Lands belong to all citizens of Nova Scotia. Currently they are being managed primarily for the forestry industry. ​The time has arrived to manage these lands for the benefit for all Nova Scotians.
​In Nova Scotia clearcutting has been a leading cause of habitat and biodiversity loss. A remedy lies in reducing clearcutting. We must address the issue of how to bring that reduction about.
Forests are our best natural means of capturing carbon to avert global warming.  Private woodlot owners should receive financial incentives for maintaining healthy forests on their lands.
Healthy insect populations are essential to the biodiversity and commercial value of Nova Scotia forests, but are being seriously impacted by on-going inappropriate forestry operations.
Maintaining Nova Scotia’s forests would reduce our carbon footprint much more effectively than the substitution of biomass for natural gas or coal for power generation.  
Are Silent springs becoming silent years? Industrial forestry operations cause drastic changes to forest structure, forest composition, and the bird communities that depend on forest habitat.
Once in the atmosphere, CO2 takes centuries to be absorbed by biological and geological processes. Forestry operations must ensure that the forest continues to capture carbon, making sustainable harvesting essential. Clear cutting should be avoided like the plague!
The overexploitation of Nova Scotia's forests is not sustainable. It is time that the truths behind forestry in our province come to light.
The Healthy Forest Coalition has sent this letter (linked on left) to Nova Scotia's Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). The letter, and briefing notes to follow, are intended to aid MLAs in their discussion on forestry and land management in the upcoming session of the Legislature. To see all the maps in more detail, click here.

2017/2018 Briefing Notes

In the links above we present the memos in the order in which they were sent. We do this for the record and also to help our supporters and others to track these issues as they develop and work their way through public debate.