Voluntary Planning

The current crisis in the forest industry is to be seen as a positive, an opportunity to establish a new order that treats the forests in ways that are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. The new regime would establish its overall goals and then put in place policies that establish the manufacturing and processing operations throughout the province, hand in hand with a structure that provides land management and harvesting capabilities in line with the new vision. Significant concepts guiding this planning for a new order would include diversity of products, emphasis on high value products, using product for its highest value product, emphasis on supplying value add industries, promoting and developing the rural economy, eliminating the need for herbicides as a management tool, restraining forest harvesters, and a planned and managed move away from clearcutting, etc.

Here are my visions of the new order:

1. A forest industry and management system in which the amount of wood harvested annually does not exceed and ideally is less than the amount of fiber grown, so that the only way to increase the AAC is to first increase the volume of wood in the forest.

2. A forest policy which places each piece of raw material into the highest value use, so that veneer logs are not sawn, saw logs are not chipped, and so on.

3. Our new forest industry should be a diversified structure of small or mid sized manufacturers scattered throughout the Province, and supported by DNR regulations that ensure that local forests support local economies (the forests of Hants County should benefit the people of that area, the forests of Cumberland… and so on.) (The MacTara model has proved unsuitable and
inappropriate).

4 In the new order, clear cuts would be limited to 4 ha, and require full environmental assessments with full public participation and input. Harvesting paradigms would be based on multi aged- multi species models and practices. The dominating concept would be environmentally, economically and
socially sustainable management. At present the Industrial definition of sustainability is that there is always fiber to cut. It is much larger: sustainability of wildlife, of environments, of watersheds, etc.

This would be encouraged by several programs: tax systems that encourage private woodlot owners to engage in this system, community college courses for contractors and forest harvest workers to train them in the new methods, etc.

* Such practices and procedures would have the effect (goal) of eliminating the need to use herbicide as a tool of forest management.
* Whole tree harvesting would be illegal. Carbon sequestering through forest practices would be encouraged.
* Carbon sequestering through forest management practices will take a high priority. Carbon credits for proper management would encourage more sustainable management.
* The sale of parcels of land that individually or in total equal or exceed 800ha would be subject to approval of sustainable management programs established for the land informed by public input.

5. Forestry in the new system would seek to produce high value products rather than large volumes of low value materials. High value fiber is used by manufacturing which adds value to the product. Support of manufacturers of these products so that high value products do not need to leave the province is essential.

6. With climate change comes new diseases and insect threats. New and appropriate protocols need to be proactively established.

That said, There are several significant concerns that I feel need to be specifically addressed in order that the above vision can be accomplished:

1. Whole Tree Harvesting, except in lot clearing for housing or farming, is to be completely banned. This process is not only non sustainable, but has a negative effect on future productivity.

2. The future of the Pulp and Paper industry is at best in doubt. This is due to factors outside our borders (We just cannot grow a eucalyptus tree in three years). Indeed it may be pushed aside by the energy crisis which places higher and higher value on thermal generated power. The prime market for low quality biomass/fiber may be already shifting from pulp to biomass thermal energy production. There is then great urgency to establish rules, regulations and parameters- even incentives for this contingency.

3. The Crown Land of Nova Scotia is a community asset. Traditionally the community has been excluded from serious forest input, as successive industries and DNR bureaucracies have taken the patronizing attitude that very few of the public truly know or can even understand the true values, needs and ways of the forest. They almost treat public input as an inconvenience. To go beyond this stage, community forests need to be established, and significant and real permanent procedures established for input and oversight on forest projects, procedures and standards.

4. Forest management, by the Crown, industries, woodlot owners, and public absolutely must become more in tune with good water management. The forest has to be reassessed as a series of wartersheds. These watrersheds are what is going to enable us to survive climate change. As one woodlot owner has said, we should manage the whole forest as if it were a riparian zone.

5. Mining usually takes place in the forest. The effects of dust contamination, forest cover interruption, tailings contamination of watersheds, segmentation of the forests must needs be considered very highly in the full environmental assessment of any such proposed mining project. That said, even supposing that we were sitting on the richest uranium deposit in the world, uranium should never be mined in Nova Scotia under any circumstance. Nothing is worth the risk.

Thank you.