Cover photo: a clearcut adjacent to the Old Annapolis Nature Reserve. The forest to the right of the clearcut is now being proposed as a second clearcut, which would create a total clearcut area of roughly 150 acres. Photo courtesy Mike Lancaster. In her eloquent and thought-provoking 2014 book, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, Arundhati Roy […]
We’re about to learn just how subservient Nova Scotia is to the forest industry
Morning File, Tuesday, December 4, 2018
1. Clearcutting “The McNeil government is promising less clearcutting on crown lands through new ‘interim’ harvesting guidelines introduced yesterday in response to a comprehensive report on forestry practices prepared by University of King’s College president Bill Lahey last August,” reports Jennifer Henderson: It’s unclear how much the controversial practice will be reduced until after permanent […]
Government takes tentative first steps to reduce clearcutting
The McNeil government is promising less clearcutting on crown lands through new “interim” harvesting guidelines introduced yesterday in response to a comprehensive report on forestry practices prepared by University of King’s College president Bill Lahey last August. It’s unclear how much the controversial practice will be reduced until after permanent guidelines are introduced by the...
As reliable as a beer commercial
Morning File, Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Erica Butler here, helping out with Morningfile today. Fear not, Tim’s still all over it. News 1. Burnside jail Tim reports from the hearing for Burnside jail prisoner Maurice Pratt, continuing to shed light on the situation in the facility. Prisoners launched a protest in August asking for better conditions at the jail, including access […]
The Lahey Review of Forest Practices is published; what does it mean?
Bill Lahey’s prescription was sweeping: “We need a new paradigm to manage our forests.” That’s what the University of King’s College president told journalists after handing the McNeil government the results of a year-long review of forestry practices in Nova Scotia. McNeil appointed Lahey last August after choosing not to implement key recommendations of the […]
Breaking: Lahey report released
The Lahey independent review of Nova Scotia forestry practices makes 45 recommendations after a year-long study. Lahey recommends that the province adopt what is known as the triad model of ecological forestry. “It seeks to combine conservation of nature with a productive and profitable forestry industry,” says William Lahey, a former deputy minister of Environment […]
McNeil promises independent review of clearcutting; critics say it’s not necessary
"We've already had a massive, exhaustive independent public review of forestry practices," says Raymond Plourde of the Ecology Action Centre. "In fact, we've had two or three in recent years."
Yesterday, Stephen McNeil made four campaign promises that he said are aimed at “preserving and enhancing the environment.” Critics say they are aimed at preserving the status quo. A re-elected Liberal government would continue the ban on onshore fracking. It would introduce a Coastal Protection Act after public consultation on issues concerning the fishery and offshore drilling....
Life After Pulp
Energy Miracles, Jobs, and other Nova Scotia Government Delusions
No one would have called it “greenwashing” at the time, but from the very beginning the pulp and paper industry in Nova Scotia was engaged in it. In 1929, when industrialist Izaak Walton Killam founded the province’s first pulp and paper mill in Brooklyn on the banks of the Mersey River estuary, the forests of […]
Losing the forests for the trees: New figures show increase in clearcutting
Despite what the Nova Scotia government has said in response to concerns raised over clearcutting, the most recent figures released from the National Forestry Database (NFD) indicate that in 2015, both the overall harvest and the proportion of trees removed by clearcutting continued to increase. And ironically, the national body used data supplied by the […]
Forest Tragedy
How the forest industry and compliant bureaucrats hijacked the public will
They were heady days. It was spring of 2008 and citizens started gathering in droves in community halls to talk about why the natural world mattered to them. A few months earlier Conservative Natural Resources Minister David Morse announced that Voluntary Planning would lead a year of independent public consultations on the province’s minerals, forests, […]