PRESS RELEASE

GPI analysis shows Nova Scotia forests in sharp decline

Press Release: GPI analysis shows Nova Scotia forests in sharp decline

14 November 2001, HALIFAX — Two hundred years of clearcutting and removing the best trees have severely degraded the economic value of Nova Scotia’s forests, according to a massive independent study released today.

The report by GPI Atlantic, a Nova Scotia-based, non-profit research group, calls for a sharp reduction in clearcutting, incentives to support forest restoration techniques that encourage stands of uneven aged trees, a shift to value-added forest products that produce more jobs per unit of wood harvested, and the protection of the province’s few remaining old growth stands.

The culmination of four years’ research, the two-volume, 450-page GPI Forest Accounts report provides a sobering look at the economic consequences of past forest management practices. The second volume contains case studies from Nova Scotia and elsewhere demonstrating best forest practices in action and showing a way forward towards restoring the province’s forest values.

The GPI study catalogs a sharp decline in valuable species like white pine, eastern hemlock, yellow birch, and oak, and a parallel loss of large diameter logs and clear lumber that fetch premium prices.

In one striking example, the report notes that as recently as 1958, 25 percent of the Nova Scotia’s forested area was dominated by forests more than 80 years old. Today such forests account for just over one percent of our forest land.

If Nova Scotia forests today had the age and species structure of forests 40 years ago, timber revenues would be $260 million higher each year than they are today, the study estimates. Because old trees store more carbon than young trees, the loss of old forests has reduced the province’s carbon storage capacity by 38%, for an estimated loss of $1.3 billion in value.

GPI Atlantic is a leader in research to establish a Genuine Progress Index, a measure of economic progress that reflects social wellbeing more accurately than the traditional measures of economic growth like Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

GPI Atlantic’s natural resource accounts, of which the forest report is one, are the first attempt in any North American jurisdiction to overcome glaring shortcomings in the way the GDP accounts for natural resource depletion.

The GDP only counts the value of natural resources when they are harvested and sold, so it portrays natural resource depletion as growth and a sign of progress and wellbeing. The more trees that are cut down and the more quickly they are cut, the faster the economy will grow, and the "better off" we are assumed to be, when economic growth measures are used to measure wellbeing

“This is simply bad accounting," said Ronald Colman, Director of GPI Atlantic. "It is like a factory owner selling off his machinery and counting the income as profit.”

"This kind of accounting explains why the fishing industry appeared to be booming, with record catches, right up to the eve of the Atlantic groundfish collapse," Colman said.

By contrast, the GPI counts the value of standing forests as well as felled timber. It treats natural resources as capital assets, subject to depletion if not harvested sustainably. In calculating the value of forests, the GPI considers not only their ability to provide timber for human consumption, but also their ability to protect against soil erosion, to store carbon and forestall climate change, to protect watersheds and wildlife habitat, and to provide recreation.

"These ecological and social functions also have economic value, even if they are not exchanged in the market," said Colman.

Colman stressed that the decline in the value of Nova Scotia’s forests stretched back 200 years and was not the work of any one government or company.

The report found that harvesting volumes had doubled in the last 20 years and the area clearcut had doubled in the last 10 years alone. It warns that more and more timber is being used to support each job in the industry.

The report urges a gradual shift from volume-based to high value wood products, as a way of increasing the number of jobs per unit of resource harvested.