Voluntary Planning

Submitted by Paul Pross
The Working Paper on the Natural Resource Public Consultation

Main Points

• The report must be forthright and unequivocal
• The draft report soft-pedals hard truth and tough criticism of current policy.
• It leaves too much room for delaying much needed reform.
• The final report must give DNR no opportunity to perpetuate the policies that it has followed for the last four decades.
• The report should stress the need for change
• The need for change should be evident in the title.
• The public is ready for change
• For forest policy and biodiversity change is imperative
• our forest resources are depleted and too young; no longer able to support a diverse rural economy.
• destructive forest practices have seriously damaged biodiversity
• in order to meet the challenges created by the possible closure of one or more of the pulp and paper mills whose welfare has dominated forest policy and whose needs have radically changed our forests we must radically change our policies and in the hopes of restoring our forests to a level of diversity able to support a variety of enterprises.
• There is an urgent need for forest restoration.
• It is especially important that the report summary clearly expresses the public’s concern for the state of the forest and biodiversity and that it leaves no doubt in the minds of the politicians and officials that change must come about. The summary will be the most widely read part of the report. It will be the basis for media reports and political debate. If it fails to convey the urgency of the need for change and the readiness of the public to accept change, then the forces of the status quo will prevail and we will lose an opportunity to restore our natural resources to a state that will support genuine progress.

The themes: The five themes are useful in organizing the complex material elicited by the public consultation. But they also seem to blur the issues, deadening the impact of the debates that took place during the consultations. In a sense they smother other important aspects of the debates, notably the need for stewardship and the need for change.

Here are some comments on the themes:

• In all cases it is important to provide a clear definition of the terms being used. Sustainability, diversity (including bio-diversity and economic diversity), intensive forest management are among the many terms that should be clarified.

• The VP exercise was supposed to identify what values Nova Scotians place on our natural resources, so while I appreciate the need to find themes that organize the material, I was confused by the emphasis on themes. I imagine others will, too, if this emphasis is carried over into the final report. The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that some ‘themes’ can also be ‘values’.

• Sustainability: Agree that this was definitely a theme. But it was also an important value. Very important to define sustainability as it has been a catchword and is much abused by those who believe you can fool the public by using words people want to hear.

• Diversity: Also important to define. Also something that is highly valued. I found the diversity discussion too narrow. Important to recognize the significance of economic diversity. I was disappointed to see that the working paper did not give more emphasis to the argument that economic diversity, which is crucial to rural development, would best thrive where there is biodiversity.

• Balance: This is the most contentious of the themes, probably because ‘balance’ has been neglected over the last forty years. How can the forest industries call for ‘balance’ when over 90% of harvesting methods involve clear cutting? Or when so many small enterprises have been pushed out of business by the conversion of the Acadian forest to something that resembles a boreal forest? Where is the ‘balance’ in our current forest composition, in which spruce and fir predominate at the expense of pine and the hardwoods? How can we talk of balance in policy-making when the Forest Technical Advisory Committee and other channels of communication to DNR are dominated by the big companies rather than by the general public or the owners of small woodlots who constitute the majority of woodland owners?

I agree with those who say that this theme should be dropped in favor of one that recognizes the need to redress the balance. How about ‘restoration’?

• Collaboration: This is also contentious. For a similar reason. The big players in the forest economy have dominated policy and practice. So are they going to change their ways and give owners of small woodlots a significant voice in forest management, access to silvicultural credits, support for organizations such as the NS Woodlot Owners and Operators Association, etc. etc.?

• Transparency: Agree with this theme. There is a desperate need for openness in government policy making and in providing access to policy-making bodies. There should be insistence that DNR live up to its obligations to make information available and to keep it current. As the provincial Auditor-General has pointed out, it is a disgrace that the Department has yet to publish the State of the Forest Report that was due several years ago. That is just one of the many kinds of information that have been withheld from the public.

Hopefully the VP report will take its own advice and not shy away from issues - such as the problems facing the pulp and paper industry - that the public ought to know about. Why deny these issues? We all know they are out there? In Maine they have been facing up to them for over a decade and developing strategies to deal with them.

There are two themes that beg discussion. They are....

• Stewardship: The term crops up repeatedly in the working paper and in the reports that I have read of the consultation meetings. It’s also in the briefs on the VP website. It’s a value that appeals to Nova Scotians, particularly those of us in rural areas. We in the Lunenburg County Forest Watch made it a significant part of our brief and hoped that you would give it serious consideration.

Other points

1. I think you too easily passed over the issues discussed in the briefs. It is true that many briefs dealt with matters too technical for consideration in the meetings that you organized. However, that should not have led you to overlook the broad concerns that were also discussed in the briefs. Our own brief, for example, raised a number of general points, including:

- the need to restore the Acadian forest
- the neglect of small woodlot management
- the slim economic margins that constrain small woodlot management
- the need to support organizations that represent non-industrial woodland owners.
- the impact of taxation on forest practices and, as a result, the need to secure cooperation from the Departments of Finance and Municipal Affairs in creating incentives for better forest management.
- the need to address the crisis in the pulp and paper industry

2. Too many quotes reflect divisive stereotypes. Industry claims that ‘environmentalists’ know nothing about ‘on the ground’ forest practices. Statements from some environmentalists that suggest that woods workers have no appreciation of biodiversity or ecology. Everyone recommends ‘educating’ others.

The tone of the working paper contributes to division because it seems to perpetuate the idea that ‘environmentalism’ and economic development are opposed to one another.

All of this is surprising, because the VP team obviously wants to bring our communities together. I think that that there are opportunities to do this, and I would like to see the final report tease them out. In particular, I think the so-called ‘green economy’ opens up many new opportunities for rural Nova Scotia; in the forest sector and in other fields that can be exploited in rural areas.

3.Government has a larger role to play in restoring our forest economy than the working paper suggests. Government should be leading the community. For example, in buying green products; in marketing wood products; in obtaining Forest Stewardship Council certification for Crown lands and in providing advisory services for owners of small woodlots. The working paper should emphasize the important role government should be playing in monitoring and regulating woodland practices.

4. Science: There were calls for ‘good science’, and demands that policy be based on science. I think these are either naive or misleading. There’s a popular saying that ‘figures don’t lie, but liars figure’. Science may be pure; but scientists can be persuaded to use science for many different purposes.

5. Keeping young people in rural employment: We won’t keep young people in rural occupations simply by taking them on field trips so that they ‘can see the opportunities in the industry’. (Working Paper, p. 13) The skills shortage in the forest sector can be attributed to (1) the major players in the industry have insisted on capital-intensive technology; technology that eliminates employment and forces young people to look elsewhere for jobs; (2) the widespread use of clear cut harvesting, which implicitly tells woods workers that it will be many years before the forest will have grown to the point where their skills will be needed; and (3) the decline of the pulp and paper industry.