“We were in wonderful moose country now.” At least this is how Albert Bigelow Paine described the Nova Scotia landscape he and three others journeyed through in his 1908 book The Tent Dwellers. The book tells the true story of a June trout fishing trip led by two guides, Charlie Charlton and Del Thomas, who...
“We are down to our last month’s rent”: naturalists say clearcutting is accelerating
“I worked at the Bowater-Mersey mill for 38 years, and our provincial government makes Bowater look like an environmentalist!” said Brian Muise. Muise, a member of the Queens County Fish and Game Association, made his comment at the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters in Truro on Saturday. Muise is […]
Environment Minister Margaret Miller isn’t talking about Northern Pulp’s much-criticized environmental assessment
Morning File, Friday, March 15, 2019
News 1. Spill at Moose River gold mine “Atlantic Gold’s manager of environment and permitting, James Millard, calls it a ‘spill’ or a ‘loss of control’ caused by a ‘gasket failure,’” reports Joan Baxter: By whatever name, the event happened on the night of January 3, 2019, at the company’s open pit gold mine at […]
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 […]
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...
The Lahey report on managing Nova Scotia forests was published three months ago; when is the government going to act on it?
How should Nova Scotia manage one of its key public resources — the forests — to make them healthier and more economically productive? Three months ago, the province received a report with 45 recommendations on how to achieve those goals. The Independent Review of Forest Practices In Nova Scotia was authored by Bill Lahey, a...
Nova Scotia’s cap-and-trade system to go easy on big corporate polluters
Legislation introduced by the McNeil government to enable setting up a cap-and-trade system to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions as part of a Trudeau directive to slow climate change was debated briefly in the Legislature this week. What is missing from Bill 15 — “An Act to Amend Chapter 1 of the Acts of 1994-95,...