NOVA SCOTIA NEEDS FORESTS

On March 23, I attended the Friends of Redtail Society's annual general meeting at the newly renovated Enfield Community Center in Pictou West. I am a member and a former (way back when) director.

About 40 people attended the meeting, and the subsequent talk was given by guest speaker Bob Bancroft.

Bob provided us with many examples from his land about how to make room for wildlife, how he actually creates wildlife habitat and is re-growing a healthy ecosystem from a once disturbed landscape. He showed us that things can be done to create a more healed environment. Discussion ensued about the health of Nova Scotia's forests, which Bob deemed to be abysmal due to the un-arrested practice of clear-cutting. Further discussion ensued about the importance of the forest in sequestering carbon, especially large trees, and also about the real or perceived danger of downed trees in fueling forest fires.

Several experienced foresters contributed to the discussion, and we learned that downed softwood trees may present a forest fire hazard under rare conditions like were present for a two-week period last spring, but that once the softwoods are down for more than a year, they actually hold moisture, reducing rather than contributing to forest fire risk. We heard that hardwoods are much more resistant to fire and that clear-cutting perpetuates the growth of a kind of forest that burns easily. Wholesale clearcutting of woodlots pushes the problem further down the road, removes valuable phosphates from the soil and, of course, diminishes carbon sequestering.

This is the kind of information the public needs to hear rather than the profit-motivated arguments under the mainstream industrial forestry model. There are signs throughout our county stating that “Nova Scotia needs Forestry'' whereas they really need to say that Nova Scotia, and all of us, need forests!

We need to learn from people like Bob Bancroft and knowledgeable foresters who speak for the well-being of the forest, its long-term viability and its critical importance to the viability of the planet. We cannot wait for another generation. The future is rushing to meet us.

Nova Poirier Elmfield, N.S. Pictou County