PRESS RELEASE

Too Little, Too Late - Tiny Changes Not Enough to Save NS Forests.

Nova Scotia has less clearcutting than it had a decade ago, more sustainable selection harvesting, and more land under protection. That’s “genuine progress,” says GPI Atlantic, the Halifax-based non-profit research group that measures the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of progress. But the changes are too small to turn around the severely degraded state of the province’s forests—the legacy of generations of over-harvesting, high-grading, clearcutting, and other unsustainable practices.

The new GPI report, which updates key data from its 2001 Forest Accounts, notes that selection harvesting, which removes trees selectively to maintain the integrity, age and species diversity, health, and value of the forest as a whole, grew marginally from 0.9% of logging in 2000 to 1.5% in 2005-06, while clearcutting declined from 97% to 94% in the same period.

As well, the percentage of Nova Scotia’s land under protection increased from 8.1% in 2001 to 8.5% in 2007, and is set to increase to 9% with the addition of three new pieces. All that is good, says GPI report author, Linda Pannozzo, but it’s a far cry from what’s needed to repair the huge damage caused by the massive increase in logging and clearcutting in the last 25 years. Since the early 1980s, timber harvest volumes have increased by nearly 60%—from 3.3 million cubic metres annually to 5.2 million in 2006, after peaking at nearly 7 million cubic metres in 2004.

As a result, the average age of Nova Scotia’s forests has never been younger. In the 1970s only 4% of the province’s forests were under 20 years of age, compared to 16% in the 1990s and 24% today. While the percentage of forests over 80 years old has declined by 94% in the last half century, the proportion of very young forests up to age 20 increased by a remarkable 327%.

Older forests (aged more than 80 years) declined from 25% of forests 50 years ago to just 1.5% in the latest forest inventory. True old-growth forest, which dominated the province’s forests prior to European colonization, has virtually disappeared from Nova Scotia. Only 0.3% of the province’s forests are now more than 100 years old, down from 9% fifty years ago. Not surprisingly, there has also been a marked decline in forest-dependent species of flora and fauna.

“When they drive down the highway, Nova Scotians think they are seeing a natural forest,” says Pannozzo. “But our mostly young, single-species, single-aged tree plantations today bear no resemblance to the magnificent and diverse Acadian forest that once existed, where many tree species would have naturally lived to be between 200 and 400 years old.” And so long as clearcutting remains by far the predominant harvest method, and until the province embarks on a dedicated strategy of restoring its damaged forests, says Pannozzo, the structure, health, and value of the province’s forests will not improve.

That, she says, would require immediate protection of all remaining old forests, a sharp reduction in clearcutting and harvest volumes, much stronger incentives to support selection harvesting and uneven-aged forest management, and a determined shift to value-added forest products that produce more jobs and economic value per unit of wood cut and thus require less timber.

Such a strategy, says Pannozzo, would greatly enhance the value of the Province’s forests. That’s because old, diverse forests perform vital functions that young ones can’t perform. They protect against soil erosion, store more carbon (vital in an era of climate change), increase resilience against diseases and pests, and provide habitat for many species that depend on old growth.

Those and other functions, in turn, improve timber productivity, increase the timber value of forests, and provide substantial economic benefits. For example, trees grown after a clearcut tend to be smaller in diameter, and produce knotty, poorer quality wood, while old forests produce wider diameter, clear wood of higher quality—characteristics that fetch higher market prices. As well, selection harvest methods provide more stable long-term employment than clearcutting. And, combined with value-added wood production, they can produce 4-5 times as many jobs per unit of biomass harvested as clearcutting and pulp and paper manufacturing which, in 2006, provided only 1.3 jobs per 1,000 cubic metres of wood harvested.

But the current reliance on pulp and paper, the severely degraded state of provincial forests, and lack of training have produced a decline in the rate of value-added forest product per cubic metre of wood harvested in Nova Scotia, giving it the second-lowest ranking among the provinces—$107 per cubic metre harvested, compared to the Canadian average of $183, and $425 in Manitoba, which has a policy of promoting value-added business operations in forestry. In 2007, only 13% of all wood exports from Nova Scotia were characterized as value-added, compared to 28% in New Brunswick, 57% in Ontario, and 75% in Manitoba. The Canadian average was 29%. The GPI report cites historical documents showing that the need for a dedicated forest restoration program has been recognized for a century. A 1910 report noted that the province’s forests were “in poor condition” due to “abuse and injudicious use,” and recommended: “To arrest further deterioration and to begin restoration is the present duty of those who have the continued prosperity of the Province at heart.”

Fifty years ago, the Government noted that forest conditions had “deteriorated considerably... making the conservative and recuperative measures even more imperative now.” And in 1997, the Department of Natural Resources wrote that softwood harvests were unsustainable, and that “overharvesting is a potentially serious problem demanding immediate attention.” In 1999, Natural Resources decided to set aside 8% of crown land in each of the province’s 38 EcoDistricts as old growth and old forest. But the province is still far from those targets. Pannozzo notes that the minimal progress and lack of substantial positive change to date undermine the Government’s new commitment to “sustainable prosperity” and its stated intention to “demonstrate international leadership by having one of the cleanest and most sustainable environments in the world by the year 2020” (Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act, 2007). The latest GPI statistics indicate that the “recuperative measures” called for half a century ago are even more urgently required today if the Government is to meet its goals.

While results have been presented here in the form of six key indicators, the evidence—and the GPI as a whole—clearly indicate the interdependent nature of the social, economic, and environmental aspects of forest health and indeed the interrelated nature of reality. Thus, to restore the health of Nova Scotia’s severely degraded forests, including their capacity to perform a wide range of vital functions that are now seriously compromised, requires the restoration of their age diversity. That in turn requires a sharp expansion of protected areas and a change in forest harvest practices and policies. A shift from clearcutting to selection harvest methods, and from over-reliance on pulp and paper production to greater value-added production can increase jobs and value per unit of biomass harvested, reduce current rates of over-harvesting, improve the viability and resilience of the forestry industry, and begin to restore forest health.

The GPI forest update is part of a major effort currently under way to update results from nearly 12 years of developmental work to create a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia. That completed GPI, to be released later this year, will summarize key headline indicators in 20 social, economic, and environmental areas, and is intended to provide the Province with a practical tool to measure its progress towards genuinely sustainable prosperity.

For more information, or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Linda Pannozzo
Senior Researcher, GPI Atlantic
902-857-2058
E-mail
Ronald Colman
Executive Director, GPI Atlantic
902-823-1944 (work)
902-489-7007 (cell)
E-mail

GPI Atlantic gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Government of Nova Scotia, the Alerce Trust, Susan and Bill van Iterson, and members of GPI Atlantic for completion of the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index.

Recommendations

The GPI analysis demonstrates clearly that—according to a wide range of criteria and indicators of forest health—Nova Scotia’s forests have been severely degraded over time, and their capacity to perform a wide range of forest functions has been seriously compromised. These functions include protection of soils, watersheds, biodiversity, habitat for species, aesthetic quality and recreational opportunities, climate regulation and sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere, and provision of the high quality, wide diameter, clear timber that characterizes older forests.
To begin to restore and protect the value of Nova Scotia’s forest wealth so that it can once again provide a full range of forest functions and services, GPIAtlantic recommends:

1. Greater incentives (tax and silvicultural) to woodlot owners for investment in forest restoration and uneven-aged management, including selection harvesting and restoration forestry methods, in order to restore the natural age distribution and species diversity of the province’s forests, and to provide more sustainable jobs;
2. A sharp reduction in the rate of unsustainable clearcutting methods, and in the volume of wood harvested annually;
3. Development of a value-added forest strategy in Nova Scotia with a shift from volume- based to value-added forest products, in order to produce high-value wood products, and thus to increase the number of jobs per unit of wood harvested;
4. Immediate protection of all remaining old-growth forest, and of older forests that have the greatest potential to return to their old-growth state over time;
5. Monitoring the full range of forest values and services, and the full cost and benefits of associated harvest methods, to be counted and tracked in annual forest accounts and in ongoing forest management planning;
6. An adequate network of represented protected areas in Nova Scotia;
7. The Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources undertake the task of calculating provincial age class distributions using Permanent Sample Plot data in five year periods from 1965-70 to 2003-08 when the 2008 field season is completed and provide this information to the public. (The historical PSP data have never been made public.)
8. All Crown land in the province allocated for harvest should be Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

Given the high rate of private ownership of forest land in Nova Scotia (69%), government policy will have to focus as much on incentives encouraging good stewardship as on policy and regulation. Incentives should include encouraging the development of small-scale wood product industries and local Nova Scotian manufacturing and value-added enterprises. This can create a win-win situation with less wood needed to provide more jobs, and with more public and private revenues remaining in local communities within the province. Forest policy and practice would thus benefit forest-dependent communities, providing long-term sustainable employment, and contributing to their overall wellbeing.