Media Clipping — Thursday May 8th, 2008, The Chronicle Herald

Forestry practices cut down

By Tom McCoag

The province needs to see the forest for the trees, a non-profit research group warned Wednesday.

Nova Scotia's forests are in big trouble and clearcutting, overharvesting and bad management practices have cut into their ability to help preserve the environment, GPIAtlantic said in a report.

"If we allow the status quo, if we allow the forest to continue to degrade, we will see more flooding, our forests' ability to store carbon will be lessened, there will be more soil erosion and the plants and animals who rely on the forests will suffer," said Linda Pannozzo, who co-authored the report. # RELATED Healthy response to forestry workshops

"There will also be economic consequences because the forests cannot sustain what is being demanded of it. We are already seeing problems in the pulp and paper market with China coming online."

A major reason why the province's forests are in such a sad state is because of the long-held belief that they should mainly be used for industrial purposes, the report said.

The provincial government focuses on ensuring there is enough wood fibre to meet market needs and that forest land is only regenerated with commercial tree species, the report said.

This industry-first approach has failed to take into account that forests play a key role in preserving the environment, it said.

"Optimally functioning forests provide such things as climate regulation, habitat and watershed protection, flood and natural pest control, soil erosion prevention, topsoil formation, nutrient recycling and long-term carbon storage and habitat for many animal species - some of which are on the endangered list - free of charge," Ms. Pannozzo said in an interview.

The failure to take those issues into account has resulted in the disappearance of most of the province's older forests, the report said.

In 1958, one-quarter of Nova Scotia's forests were 80 years of age or older, but old forests like that now make up just one per cent of today's forest, the report said.

As a result, there are younger forests in the province, ones that cannot sustain the needs of the forestry industry or properly perform their environmental roles, the report said.

Government officials have known about the problem for more than 50 years, but they continued to support the use of the province's forests for industrial purposes, even though numerous studies showed that older, more diversified forests offered key environmental benefits, the report said.

The report also stated that the move toward younger forests has resulted in more plants and animals, such as the Blanding's turtle and the ram's-head lady's-slipper, being placed on the endangered species list.

Younger forests, aged 40 and below, now make up more than one-third of the province's forests.

About 94 per cent of all forest harvesting is done by clearcutting, the report said. It said the harvesting method has adversely affected the health of the province's forests by removing canopy cover and exacerbating soil erosion while at the same time compromising the capacity of forests to protect watersheds, store carbon and regulate climate.

The report also states that clearcutting reduces timber values and fails to provide steady forestry jobs.

To restore the province's forests, GPIAtlantic says Nova Scotia must provide incentives to woodlot owners to create mixed-aged forests and encourage selective harvesting methods.

The province must also ensure a "sharp reduction" in clearcutting and develop a strategy that encourages the Nova Scotia forest industry "to shift from volume-based to value-added forest products."

This could be done by encouraging the "development of small-scale wood product industries, local Nova Scotian manufacturing and value-added enterprises," the report said.

Doing this would "increase the number of jobs per unit of wood harvested," the report said.

The province must also take immediate action to protect all of Nova Scotia's remaining old-growth forests and develop an adequate network of protected areas.

The Natural Resources Department would not comment on the GPIAtlantic report because doing so would undermine its just-launched effort to have Nova Scotia Voluntary Planning look at the future of the province's natural resources, including the forestry.

Jamie Simpson, a spokesman with the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax, said his organization fully supported GPIAtlantic's recommendations, particularly the ones calling for more value-added wood products, a decrease in clearcutting and more diversified forests.

"Aging and diversifying the forest would make our forests less susceptible to climate change, to things like bug infestations, fire and disease," Mr. Simpson said. "We believe that the money spent on supporting the clear-cut system would be better spent on a program that would promote an uneven-aged, diversified forest."

Tom Miller, a woodlot owner in Greenhill, Pictou County, said the state of Nova Scotia's forests "is just deplorable." He said it'll probably take generations to reverse the situation.

"It's certainly a very long-term proposition," said Mr. Miller, 57. "For my lifetime, we're not going to see this (potential restoration) because it's a long way off."

Mr. Miller said the pulp mill business and province's forestry managers have no one to blame but themselves.

"This (forest mismanagement) is what we've built," said Mr. Miller, who, along with his wife, Lori, were Nova Scotia's woodlot owners of the year in 2005.

"I've been working in the woods since 1974, and we just started then mowing everything down."

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