BOB BANCROFT • Guest Opinion
Successive provincial governments have continued to sanction technology-enabled, massive clearcutting on (Crown) public lands that are frequented by at-risk species such as the endangered mainland moose. It is happening today.
Moose presence has been observed for many years by local people in a region between the Silver River Wilderness Area and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area in western Nova Scotia. Much of the forest has already been clearcut. The remaining forest is about 40 years old, which is still young.
Roads have already been built in anticipation of clearing many more hectares of Crown forest, as shown in map view on the province’s website. A consortium of 13 mills and industrial forestry groups called WestFor are behind the harvest plans, but ultimately the Department of Lands and Forestry (DLF) has approved the cuts. They have also eliminated the term “clearcut” and substituted words like “variable retention,” “overstorey removal,” “salvage cut,” “shelterwood,” etc. All of these “treatments” leave few trees. Many of those become susceptible to blowdown.
These harvests are even-aged clearcuts (large areas cut at one time, with same-age trees regenerating on the site). These practices expose the ground to greatly increased sunlight and wind, resulting in soil that is overly warm and dry. Important soil organisms die. Rains flush water across open cuts, where it used to seep through forested landscapes. Running water transports more erosion into waterways, while leaching nutrients from the soils.
This brand of cutting produces quick profits for companies but annihilates suitable habitats for moose and many other wildlife species. It also increases road access while offering little shelter and meagre food resources.
Satellite images of clearcutting now spread like leprosy across the once-wooded body of Nova Scotia. The pace and scale of forest flattening on Crown land has set a horrible example for private lands, which also look like a measles rash from space.
To maintain the genetic integrity of many wildlife populations, protected areas in this province need to be linked by ecologically healthy working forests. The Lahey report called these the “ecological matrix.” These biologically important areas are being torn apart. The real disease is greed.
Where are our forests going? The global demand for logs, pulp, chips and biomass for electricity has companies eradicating woodlands and wildlife habitats everywhere across the province. Much of this biomass is sent overseas to Europe as chips and pellets to burn for heat and electricity, as a replacement for coal.
Burning biomass is worse than burning coal and its carbon emissions, but the carbon accounting is deliberately skewed by most companies and foreign governments to make it appear green. Nova Scotia old-growth hardwoods are being chipped and shipped to Turkey to make oriented strand board (OSB).
Many species of Acadian forest trees can live for centuries and respond poorly to repeated, 40-year clearcutting. They grow best in mixed stands of hardwoods and softwoods with shaded, moist soils. Their seeds can take hold and grow in the shade of these forests, waiting for the time an old tree falls down and sunlight reaches the forest floor. This prompts tree growth of youngsters already established on the site. Clearcutting creates open, sunny, dry soil conditions where other “pioneer” tree species take over. With repeated cutting, the sites become degraded and less species-rich.
The forest industry states that there is more forest now than existed 100 years ago. Woodlands today are a shadow of their former selves when compared to their state a century ago. Less than one percent is old growth now, and mature forests are quickly disappearing.
Forest companies are failing to follow the Lahey report’s ecological forestry recommendations, a two-year-old report that the government commissioned and accepted. DLF is allowing forests to be “mined,” not managed. They leave behind moonscapes with lower soil nutrient reserves. It will take centuries to restore healthy forests on these sites. There has been too much quick, heavy machinery-enabled, large-scale cutting over many decades.
A group of local citizens in western Nova Scotia has concluded that civil disobedience may be the only means to stop this travesty. They’ve set up a blockade to stop the machinery. This is happening in spite of the recent Supreme Court case highlighting the government's failure to live up to its own laws regarding species at risk.
A few facts about moose and their habitat requirements:
- When the mainland moose population was declared endangered in 2003, the government recovery plan was to identify and set aside “core habitats” for moose. Not one core habitat has ever been designated.
- Moose need mixed hardwood-softwood stands with at least 25 per cent hardwoods, spread over landscapes for food.
- Herbicides are eliminating hardwoods, an important food source for many wildlife species, including deer and moose.
- Some will tell you that they’ve seen a moose in a clearcut. The sprouts/suckers growing from stumps in clearcuts offer little nutrition for moose, compared to young hardwoods growing from seed. Moose tend to avoid clearcuts until 15-25 years of regeneration exists on the site.
- Moose are highly dependent on mature, 100-plus-year-old forests for shelter from summer heat and cold winter winds, with a scattering of younger forest patches for food. Lands and Forestry authorizes the reverse: a few forest “clumps” set in a sea of clearcuts.
- Lands and Forestry mandates a 20-metre-wide forest buffer between clearcuts and waterways. Scientific studies have found that the buffers have to be at least 60 metres wide before moose will use them.
- When road densities reach 0.6 km per square kilometre, moose avoid such areas, even if it has good habitat. New forest roads can ruin good habitat and there’s precious little of that left now for mainland moose anywhere.
Current regulations are useless to this critically endangered species. None of these basic moose needs are reflected in Lands and Forestry’s “Endangered Mainland Moose Special Management Practices.”
By now, the Species at Risk court decision last May should have resulted in a positive change in how moose are managed in Nova Scotia.
Nature Nova Scotia calls for:
- A moratorium on all even-aged harvests that produce clearcut-like ground conditions on Crown lands until ecological forestry practices are enacted on the landscape, with appropriate attention to wildlife habitats.
- The immediate relocation of senior staff in Lands and Forestry who are responsible for this clearcut mentality. They should occupy positions where they can no longer authorize woodland plundering. Individuals who understand the need to enact ecological-based forestry should replace them. Industry wolves in sheep’s clothing need not apply!
- Revise the Crown Lands Act and other pertinent legislation so that these no longer sanction the pillaging of public lands by forest companies. Remove Crown land as a cheap source of wood fibre for private profits. Subject these lands to a broad planning process that includes benefits in addition to timber and pulp production, while working with nature to promote healthy forests with more wildlife habitats. This approach will produce clean air and water, combat climate change by capturing carbon instead of releasing it into the atmosphere, and enable a wider, positive range of human recreational activities.
Bob Bancroft, MSc, is president, Nature Nova Scotia. Member organizations: Blomidon Naturalists Society, Cape Breton Naturalists Society, Eastern Shore Forest Watch Association, Friends of Nature, Friends of the Pugwash Estuary, Halifax Field Naturalists, Margaree Environmental Association, Nova Scotia Bird Society, Nova Scotia Wild Flora Society, Tusket River Environmental Protection Association, Young Naturalists Club of Nova Scotia