High production forestry plan unveiled
After five years of research, planning and much debate, a new paradigm for managing Nova Scotia’s Crown land is in place.
The last piece came Tuesday, when the Natural Resources and Renewables Department unveiled plans for selection and management of high-production forest lands.
Ten per cent (185,000 hectares) of Nova Scotia’s Crown land will eventually be treated like a farmer’s field, where trees are grown as a crop on 30- to 50-year rotations to produce softwood for the roughly 10 larger commercial sawmills, with byproduct going to pulp and paper production.
Achieving the anticipated yield of one million green tonnes of wood annually will see sites clearcut, the soil fertilized or limed, planted, potentially sprayed with herbicides to eliminate leafy competing species, pre-commercial thinned for a decade or more and eventually harvested as a block.
The remaining 90 per cent will either be either protected (currently about 35 per cent) or fall under the ecological forestry classification (now about 55 per cent), which requires harvesting practices that encourage biodiversity and the return to more longer-lived Acadian forest species such as yellow birch, hemlock, white pine, sugar maple and red spruce.
The segmenting of Crown land into three categories based on research of what’s already growing and encouraging areas capable of returning to a more natural state was recommended by University of King’s College president Bill Lahey in his 2018 report titled An Independent Review of Forest Practices in Nova Scotia.
“I want to emphasize how pleased I am that the triad recommendation has been so comprehensively embraced,” said Lahey when contacted by SaltWire Network on Wednesday.
“I think that’s also good for industry. My report was not anti-industry. We do want more protection for biodiversity but we also want a thriving forest products industry. We can have both if we are determined to have both.”
Industry, government and environmental organizations all signed on in support of implementing the recommendations.
“Everybody has to take a little water with their wine,” said Raymond Plourde, wilderness co-ordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, when asked about the high production forestry leg.
“If we support the entire Lahey package, as we do, then we have to accept this. Having said this, I am pleased that the government has set a hard cap of 10 per cent (of Crown land) for high-production forestry. When we look back not many years, it could be said that high production was the dominant paradigm on Crown lands.”
Elmsdale Lumber general manager Stephen Thompson said that while industry was hoping the cap on highproduction forestry would be set higher, at 15-18 per cent, their main concern is with the implementation timeline of high-production forest land selection.
In its announcement, Natural Resources unveiled sites it had deemed acceptable for high-production classification in a western eco-district straddling Lunenburg, Queens and Annapolis counties (1,255 of 30,045 hectares of Crown land), a central ecodistrict straddling Colchester and Pictou counties (3,535 of 27,180 hectares of Crown land) and an eastern district straddling Antigonish and Guysborough counties (4,605 of 43,140 hectares of Crown land).
Rather than 10 per cent, the lands unveiled Tuesday for potential high-production forestry use totaled 0.5 per cent of total Crown lands. In its planning document, the department anticipated selecting the remaining sites will take decades as they have to fit strict criteria.
Priority is given to sites that are former farmers’ fields or are already being managed for high production. Then sites are removed for consideration that fit the following criteria:
• Sites within 100 metres of the conservation zone
• Known locations for species at risk or within associated buffers
• Critical wildlife habitat areas
• Areas with extreme wind exposure (including ecodistricts along the Atlantic coast and in the Cape Breton Highlands)
• Isolated parcels that are too small and/or not economically viable
• Sites with rare or sensitive ecosystems
• Areas with poor soil fertility or drainage
Thompson didn’t find fault with the selection criteria but warned that industry relies upon Crown land for a portion of its sawlogs and wants sites to be chosen in a shorter time frame than “decades.”
“To me, that is unacceptable,” Thompson said of the timeline.
“Having said that, this government appears to recognize the need for the forestry sector to contribute economically to this province. I am somewhat confident we might be able to expedite the timeline through consultation.”