Last month Forest Nova Scotia, an industry group representing the most powerful shapers of forestry policy in this province, spearheaded a propaganda campaign against the Biodiversity Act, which the Liberal government of Iain Rankin had introduced on March 11, calling it legislation that would “preserve and protect Nova Scotia’s unique ecosystems, wild animals, plants, lakes...
Occupy North Mountain
Kings County residents opposed to aerial herbicide spraying on a Northern Pulp clearcut take action to try to stop it.
Residents who live close to a piece of land on North Mountain in Kings County that was clearcut two years ago and is now slated for aerial spraying of a glyphosate-based herbicide, have “occupied” the site, and they tell the Halifax Examiner that they don’t intend to leave until the spraying is cancelled or the […]
Killam still profiting during pandemic
Morning File, Friday, August 7, 2020
News 1. McNeil stepping down Stephen McNeil is stepping down as premier. Zane Woodford reports on the surprise announcement, which McNeil made Thursday during a post-cabinet news conference. Says McNeil: Seventeen years is a long time, and it’s long enough. Today I’m announcing I will be stepping down and leaving public office. I have informed […]
The summer of play
Morning File, Friday, July 3, 2020
News 1. Cabinet roundup Jennifer Henderson offers a concise and informative roundup of the day’s news from virtual Province House, following yesterday’s cabinet meeting. The short version: the province and feds are still trying to work out the details of an inquiry into the April 18-19 mass murders, school may or may not be on […]
The Borealization of Acadia
Due to climate change, warm weather-friendly trees should be dominating our forests; instead, cold-weather species are taking over. We now understand why — thanks to a phone call from the Irving company to lean on a professor's dean.
A new study shows that since European settlement, the rich mix of deciduous and conifer trees in the temperate forest — known by settlers as “Acadian” forest — of the Maritimes, New England, and southeastern Quebec has undergone “borealization,” meaning there has been “widespread replacement of temperate tree species by boreal species,” which are common […]
Who’s hiring during COVID-19?
The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free. I (Suzanne Rent) haven’t done a list of terrible-paying jobs in some time. But on the weekend when Tim Bousquet shared a tweet from Stanfield’s saying they were hiring more staff to help them make medical gowns, I thought I’d look into what companies are […]
A Tree Walk will make us all rich!
Morning File, Thursday, August 22, 2019
News 1. Cod “DFO has issued a stark warning linking the demise of codfish in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence to an exploding seal population,” reports Paul Withers for the CBC: It’s contained in the most recent stock assessment of Atlantic cod in the southern gulf, which was released earlier this month. “At the current abundance […]
Turning protesters into pets
How Nova Scotia's forestry regulators are already undermining the Lahey Report, and what we can do about it.
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 […]
Super Big Money: Lots of federal money is coming to the Ocean Supercluster, but who will benefit?
Fog obscured the harbour view on Wednesday as nearly 400 people from business, government, and academia clustered inside Pier 21 for a free update on the “Oceans Supercluster.” In what Shakespeare buffs call “the pathetic fallacy,” the day’s grey weather paralleled the verbal haze that’s blanketed the entity endorsed by Ottawa and some leading Atlantic...