Federal government offers $1.4m to help Keji forests

The federal government announced $1.4 million Monday to help protect the threatened Eastern hemlock forests of Kejimkujik National Park.

According to a news release from the Department of Environment and Climate Change, the trees have been under threat from the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid, an aphid-like insect from Asia, since it was first spotted in southwest Nova Scotia in 2017 and in Kejimkujik a year later. The insects have already killed thousands of Eastern hemlock trees over the past three decades in the United States, and now pose a significant threat to the park’s forest, the department says. Without intervention, 80 per cent of Kejimkujik’s Eastern hemlock trees could be lost over the next three to 10 years.

Eastern hemlock trees, which can live over 300 years, are critical to the park’s ecosystem and provide important habitat for many other species, the department says. The trees also form a high percentage of important old-growth forests in Nova Scotia and Keji is one of the last remaining landscapes where large areas of them can be experienced.

The government says it’s not possible to completely eradicate the invasive insects. Parks Canada has implemented several measures in the park to control the insect’s population and slow its spread and impact, including implementing a firewood importation ban, trimming branches at Jeremy’s Bay campground to minimize contact with people, pets and vehicles as well as community education.

Monday’s funding announcement enables Parks Canada to continue collaborating with academic and scientific institutions, Indigenous communities and organizations across the country to implement new measures over the next five years to reduce the spread of the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid and increase the resiliency of Eastern hemlock.