Effective today, old-growth forests in Nova Scotia will be protected from logging or other commercial activity under an updated old-growth forest policy. The policy takes effect four years after being recommended to government by an independent forestry review led by University of King’s College president Bill Lahey. Natural Resources and Renewables Minister Tory Rushton made […]
Public importance of private woodlots
Morning File, Wednesday, May 25, 2022
News 1. Public importance of private woodlots This item was written by Ethan Lycan-Lang. There’s been a lot of discussion about how we manage our forests in this province; forests that are both disappearing and deteriorating in health. Ask most biologists, environmentalists, and non-industry foresters and they’ll tell you “discussion” is all there’s been when […]
One small step for the Lahey report: the province is finally trying to speak for the trees
Morning File, Wednesday, May 11, 2022
News 1. Mass Casualty Commission: police passed up access to province’s emergency alert system years before shooting One of the earliest questions to arise from the mass shooting of April 2020 was how the police took so long to notify the public that a man driving a replica squad car was on a killing spree. […]
Dalhousie University’s decision to source “sustainable biomass” from J.D. Irving and Wagner a “piss-off”
News that Emera’s Brooklyn biomass plant is out of commission is making waves in Nova Scotia, while Dal’s biomass facility in Truro garners little publicity.
In May 2021, Dalhousie University issued a tender for “sustainable biomass” to feed the bioenergy plant on its agricultural campus in Truro. At the end of July 2021, the university quietly awarded the contract — worth $1,318,187.50 — to J.D. Irving and Wagner Forest NS. This marked a departure for Dalhousie’s biomass plant, which for […]
Discovering an exciting, strange city in an old part of town
Morning File, Wednesday, December 1, 2021
News 1. Three years after the Lahey Report, nothing has changed In 2018, University of King’s College President Bill Lahey released a report commissioned by the provincial government, reviewing the province’s forestry practices and making recommendations for a sustainable future. Officially known as “Forest Practices Report for Nova Scotia (2018)” but called “The Lahey Report” […]
Paper Excellence holds a media show and piles on the PR
Northern Pulp’s owner is working on a $350 million “complete transformation” for the mill in Pictou County, but doesn’t say whether any of that money will be public, or why Nova Scotians should trust them.
On the morning of July 15, Iris Communications’ Sean Lewis sent out a press release on behalf of Paper Excellence. It was chockablock with carefully calibrated and curated PR, informing us that Northern Pulp’s 54-year-old pulp mill in Pictou County was set to become “a “best-in-class operation” and “one of the world’s cleanest, most environmentally […]
Public engagement, future of the forestry, and the Harvest Plans Map Viewer
Activists says the online tool where Nova Scotians can submit feedback on what happens to the forests on public lands is inaccessible and lacks historical data.
In December 2020, Mike Lancaster was invited to attend an online meeting of the Western Region Stakeholder Interaction Committee, which he describes as a venue for those holding forestry licences on Crown land and “other key stakeholders to engage with the Department of Lands and Forestry on forestry and planning issues for the western region […]
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 […]
The Climate Emergency
Part 4: Our current economy can't address the crisis; what are we going to do about it?
Previously in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. It’s not often that I root for the anti-hero in a book, but it seems that as I neared the end of Jeremy Lent’s latest book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning — perhaps the longest book I’ve ever read at […]
“Who speaks for the mainland moose and Canada warbler?” asks judge
Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Christa Brothers will decide whether the Minister of Lands and Forestry has failed to live up to the obligations set out in the Endangered Species Act to protect wildlife in the province. “We seek the Court’s assistance as a last resort,” said lawyer Jamie Simpson, representing the Federation of Nova...