Media Clipping — February, 2002, from the Masthead News, St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia

Forests are devastated by two centuries of clearcutting: GPI report

Forests are devastated by two centuries of clearcutting: GPI report

By Masthead Staff

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Two centuries of removing the best trees and clear cutting have severely degraded Nova Scotia's natural forest wealth, said Mr. Ron Colman, head of GPI Atlantic, in the February 4th meeting called by local protesters Brad Armstrong and Rudy Haase in Chester.

Ninety nine percent of the forest cutting in the province is clear cutting, he emphasized.

Mr. Colman spoke before a room filled with people concerned about the clear cutting of the Kaiser Meadows area in Chester Municipality.

Going by notes he gleaned from a print out of GPI Atlantic, a company that bases its research on the treatment of natural resources as capital assets and not the gross domestic product (GDP), and from his own personal knowledge, Mr. Colman said that Nova Scotia has lost nearly all of its remaining old forests within the last 40 years.

"A 1958 survey found 25% of. the province's forested area still dominated by forests more than 80 years old," he stated. "Today, just over one percent of our forest stands are older than 80 years." [See full-size graphic.]

There has been a sharp reduction in valuable species like yellow birch, eastern hemlock, white pine and oak, and the virtual extinction of black ash.

"True old growth forest in Nova Scotia is endangered and exists only in very small, scattered, isolated pockets in the province," his fact sheet read. "The volume of timber cut in Nova Scotia has doubled over the past two decades. The area of forests clear cut has doubled in just one decade."

Mr. Colman said that the current annual rate of cutting is unsustainable.

The changes that have taken place have sharply reduced the economic value of Nova Scotia's forests due to:

• The loss of value species
• The loss of large diameter logs and clear lumber that fetch premium prices
• The loss of resistance to insect infestation that results from species diversity
• The loss of wildlife habit, including decreasing populations of birds
• The loss of forest recreation that can impact tourism
• A decline in forest watershed protection that is likely contributing to a 50% decline in shade-dependent brook trout
• A resulting contribution to global warming.

The GDP gives no value to standing forests, and thus counts their depiction and liquidation as economic gain, Mr. Colman said.

"This is bad accounting, like a factory owner selling off his machinery and counting it as profit," he said.

Current timber accounting methods ignore the loss of non-timber values such as preserving the ecology, species diversity, watershed protection, soil erosion, non-fertility of soil, and the preservation of natural forests.

Mr. Colman said that the situation could be turned around by providing greater incentives for investment in forest restoration, selection harvesting, and other good management procedures.

In addition, he recommended a sharp reduction in the rate of clear cutting and the volume of timber harvested annually, a gradual shift to high-value wood products, protection of all remaining old growth forest, and the monitoring of forest values, services, and the full cost and benefits of associated harvest methods.

Copyright © 2002, The Masthead News