CORBETT LAKE, N.S. - When Annapolis County’s municipal council heard in late December that yet more crown forest was up for public comment and possible harvest, Warden Timothy Habinski said council would meet over the holidays to discus the matter and formulate a response.
By the time it met on Jan. 3 the Department of Lands and Forestry said those posted parcels of land between Corbett and Dalhousie lakes south of Bridgetown had already been approved for harvest and the posting on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer in December had been a mistake.
Councillors didn’t know what to think of the conflicting information that was only released late in the day on New Year’s Eve.
See also FORESTRY FAUX PAS
“We really need a clear understanding of exactly what it is the province is stating, what it has done, exactly how closely they followed their own process,” said Habinski in a Jan. 7 interview. “We can’t do an awful lot unless we have clarity on those issues, so council made a resolution to direct the CAO – which means all of staff – to get in touch with the province and clarify exactly what the rules are surrounding this kind of a cut and how that process was followed, or not followed, by the province in this instance.”
Habinski said he’s hearing three different stories from different sources and council needs to be clear on it before it can take any meaningful action.
Cause For Concern
Back in December, things were a lot more simple.
“It’s certainly cause for concern,” Habinski said just before Christmas about the proposed harvests, “and I think council as a whole will be concerned about this. It’s of sufficient importance.”
He said in that December interview council would decide as a group what its response should be. At that time council believed it would have been able to comment on the proposed harvest up until Jan. 19. What they didn’t know was that the first stage of a two-stage harvest had already taken place.
Biologist Donna Crossland was among 18 concerned citizens who walked those two parcels of crown forest Dec. 26 to discover the south parcel had already been harvested along with part of the north lot.
Like municipal council, she and others are trying to find out what happened and she’s less generous than Habinski.
“As a person who worked diligently to present objective and peer-reviewed science on forestry during the Natural Resources strategy, I am saddened to profess that science-based logic does not result in meaningful changes in how government conducts forestry in Nova Scotia,” she said. “No other values other than short-sighted economics are considered -- not starving wildlife, fewer fish in streams, soil erosion, carbon science, climate change, flood abatement, value-added forest industries (unsupported), nor soil nutrients (that are) so depleted they result in slowing future tree growth, or healthy forests for our children.”
Take a Stand
Crossland said when basic science and enlightenment fail, the citizens of Nova Scotia must "take a stand to protect the last stand of forest, our natural heritage nearly entirely destroyed.”
She said people need to increase the watch over the forests -- verify forests across the province prior to and post-harvest.
“We, the people must halt the growing biomass industry, the toxic pulp mill, and shift focus to restoring damaged forests for the benefit of all forest dwellers whether the lichen or the marten,” she said, “and building industries that utilize higher quality and value-added products that generate greater economic return. We do all these things for a healthy forest and for our grandchildren; for seven generations as the Mi'kmaq so wisely tell us.”
She said a good start to becoming a better 'forest protector' is to:
1) View the film ‘Burned,’ to be shown in East Dalhousie (near the heart of some recent biomass cuts) and in Bridgetown this month. Learn more about what is happening in Nova Scotia forests and what you can do in discussions that follow the movie.
2) Write or speak with your local MLA about forestry concerns.
3) Sit in the forest.
