Nature Nova Scotia slams Port Hawkesbury Paper logging deal

Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. 

On February 8, Nova Scotia’s Department of Natural Resources & Renewables issued a news release announcing it had renewed Crown leases for Port Hawkesbury Paper that would allow the company to continue to harvest and manage woodlands in Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia for the next 20 years. 

The release said that instead of being permitted to harvest 400,000 tonnes of wood annually, the amount was being reduced to 275,000 tonnes a year. 

On first reading, the notion that the volume of wood was being reduced in an area of mixed forest, looked great. What’s not to like?

Well, quite a lot, according to concerns raised in a recent letter to Minister Tory Rushton from the executive of the group Nature Nova Scotia, representing about 10,000 Nova Scotians. 

But before delving into these concerns, a check with Natural Resources revealed that for the past 10 years, 294,00 tonnes of wood was the annual harvest on these Crown lands, a lot less than the 400,000-tonne maximum mentioned in the news release. 

Large areas of Guysborough, Antigonish, and Pictou counties as well as Cape Breton island have been extensively logged for decades, so maybe there simply isn’t that much wood available. In any case, the reduction turns out to be less than advertised. The province also chose to renew the paper company’s crown leases without bothering with the environmental assessment recommended by the Lahey review.

The letter to the Rushton is signed by retired wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft, the president of Nature Nova Scotia, and by vice-president Donna Crossland, a scientist who participated in the Minister’s Advisory Committee on the implementation of the Independent Review led by Bill Lahey. They say the Department of Natural Resources is not walking the walk when it comes to implementing ecological forestry. 

Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

We are deeply concerned with the accumulation of clear-cuts and very heavy forest removals that have been proposed on Harvest Plans over the past 5 months. We appear to be retrogressing in eastern NS from progress to improve forestry practices stemming from two massive reviews on forestry practices: Independent review of forest practices by Prof Lahey (2018) and the Natural Resources Strategy (2009-10).

Timing of cuts called into question

Nature Nova Scotia has attached a list of dozens of proposed harvests in Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia totalling approximately 1,500 hectares. 

All of these harvests are essentially clearcuts on crown lands that have been designated “matrix” or “mixed use” for the purpose of ecological forestry.

Donna Crossland says that “during a period of climate crisis, there can be no justification for clearcutting.” The letter states that these “heavy cuts” that leave only 10-30% of the previous forest cover “will not hold up to windstorms and will not retain soil carbon, foster biodiversity, nor shelter wildlife or provide food sources.”

The Halifax Examiner requested a response directly from Rushton to these clearcutting concerns, especially since the government says it has implemented the model recommended by Lahey, which prohibits clearcutting on the portion of Crown lands reserved for ecological forestry. Here’s the response we received by email from media relations officer Adele Poirier with the Department of Natural Resources:

 As of June 1, 2022, new harvest plans in the Acadian forest are following the practices outlined in the Silviculture Guide for the Ecological Matrix. These harvests are in the matrix or mixed use zone of the triad model. In this zone, biodiversity is prioritized and timber harvesting is done using lower intensity practices in the guide. Clearcutting is not permitted.

There are a few exceptions. Some harvest plans that were approved under old guidelines are grandfathered and can continue following the original approval until completed. They total less than 0.2% of Crown land.

 Port Hawkesbury Paper has some of these grandfathered blocks within their licence area. They have until June 30, 2023 to become fully compliant with the new guide. [emphasis added].

So the government response sounds like blaze away under the old rules for another season. 

Read the entire Nature Nova Scotia letter here.

The Examiner asked the Rushton if he would consider the request by Nature Nova Scotia to “suspend” a planned clearcut of a large area northeast of Lake Ainslie. One hectare is about the size of a football or rugby field. This cut includes 339.5 hectares in Inverness County. 

More than a hundred years ago, this mixed-use area was dominated by hardwood but today it’s mostly softwood and that means Port Hawkesbury Paper can argue it’s fair grist for its newsprint mill. Rushton has not yet responded to whether the Lake Ainslie cut is moving ahead. 

For Bancroft and Crossland, the most distressing part of these 1,500 hectares of new clearcuts (apart from the fact they aren’t supposed to be happening in a post-Lahey world) is that they don’t appear to be necessary. And that the risk of further damage to our climate and biodiversity could be avoided. 

Here’s another excerpt from the Nature Nova Scotia letter :

In addition to the mounting clear-cuts proposed, there is a huge influx of wood coming to mills from the recent hurricane. Current reports are that the mills have plenty of wood stockpiled and coming in from blowdowns. Some further 849 hectares of salvage cutting is proposed on Crown and untold volumes coming off private woodlots where blowdown was heavy. Hurricanes tend to fell the largest trees, so wood volumes should be relatively high. In this context, we would suggest that our large pulp mill, Port Hawkesbury Paper, is not short on wood supply.

The closure of Northern Pulp also aids their supply. Therefore, a further stock-piling of clear-cut proposals, some that are exceedingly large and using old ways such as variable retention 10- 30%, is wholly unacceptable and furthermore unrequired. It is up to government to follow the recommendations of Lahey.

Department of Natural Resources media advisor Adele Poirier says the cleanup after Fiona remains a work-in-progress:

Fiona cleanup is a short-term issue. We’re still working to understand the full scope of what is needed. We are working with companies to prioritize Fiona clean up on Crown land and supporting cleanup work on both private and Crown land. However, there are instances when companies will still need to harvest standing Crown wood.

The Nature Nova Scotia letter sent to the Rushton ends with a plea: 

Please suspend all clear-cuts recently proposed on the attached list until further examination of these cuts takes place under the lens of modern ecological forest practices. Remember that Crown lands are for far more than just forestry, with their greatest importance being ecosystem services they provide. Consider investigating how Natural Resources staff have regressed in approving such cuts in eastern NS. We hope that you may create your own political legacy and do what is best for public forests. Curbing the over-reach of industry is necessary.

You can see Nature Nova Scotia’s list of proposed clearcuts in northeastern Nova Scotia here. A few of them impact habitat roamed by the mainland moose, an endangered species. The moose has been waiting 20 years now for designated protection of its core habitat. 

Adele Poirier with Natural Resources tells the Examiner, “We are actively working on it but we anticipate it will take several years to complete.”

Poirier says this is because protecting core habitat requires both legal definition as well as consultation with property owners. The few hundred moose remaining are already living a precarious existence. Satellite images from a global organization called forestwatch show tree cover across mainland Nova Scotia continuing to decline.