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Lahey laments lack of progress on report

AARON BESWICK abeswick@herald.ca @chronicleherald

In his parting shot, William Lahey warns that despite the work to implement his recommendations on how we manage Crown lands, little to nothing has actually changed in the forests.

“From the information at my disposal, I am not able to conclude that much or any change has happened in how forestry is practised based on the work the Department has done on implementing the (2018 Forest Practices report),” wrote Lahey in a 70page review of the progress made on his recommendations.

“Combined with the fact that only five recommendations have been fully implemented, and that the implementation phase of work on recommendations has not started on roughly two-thirds of all recommendations, implementation cannot so far be judged a success.”

Three years ago the president of the University of King’s College authored the Forest Practices Report that came with 45 recommendations to completely change how forestry is managed on Crown land. The Lahey Report, as it became known, recommended that the land be divided up into three categories for management (the triad approach): protected where no harvesting occurs; ecological forestry with a light touch meant to return it to longer lived, high-value species; and high production with a cut, plant and spray approach to provide industry’s needs.

The progress review published Tuesday gave the Department of Lands and Forestry credit for “working hard on implementation” and an increased rate of accomplishment over the past six months.

But it warns that as reports and plans for eventual selection and management of the lands are slowly being prepared, clearcutting continues on lands that we’d expect to be eventually classified for lighter touch ecological forestry.

“Since this current forestry is not guided by the yet-tobe-implemented silvicultural guide or limited by the yetto-be-approved Old Forest Policy, it could be seriously degrading the very forests that implementation of the triad on Crown land would be protecting from clearcutting,” reads the review.

“It could thereby be compromising and delaying many opportunities to protect and enhance forests that will be within the ecological leg of the triad when the triad is fully implemented on Crown land.”

In a written statement Natural Resources and Renewals minister Tory Rushton thanked Lahey for his review and promised to respond after having had more time to analyze it.

“The shift to ecological forestry represents a historic change in how we manage our forests,” said Rushton.

“Professor Lahey has provided the department with an in-depth evaluation and staff are reviewing it closely to determine our next steps. We remain committed to implementing ecological forestry as quickly as possible and we thank Prof. Lahey for his insights and guidance.”

North Nova Forest Cooperative manager Greg Watson was one of many in forestry circles poring over the review Tuesday afternoon. For decades he ran powersaws, drove skidders, planted trees and sprayed herbicides to give commercially valuable softwoods like spruce and fir a head start over their leafy competitors.

Now he develops management plans with the co-op’s private woodland-owning 353 members for their 80,000 hectares around central Nova Scotia.

“(Lahey) was critical that because implementation on Crown land is delayed, now changing practices on private land is delayed,” said Watson.

“Which has left it up to people like me and companies like (North Nova) to lead.”

Watson estimates over 90 per cent of North Nova’s land is managed in keeping with the ecological leg of the planned forestry triad – making regular smaller harvests that maintain a forest while encouraging site appropriate longer lived, higher value species.

About 70 per cent of the province’s forests are in private hands – either smaller landowners like the members of North Nova or large industrial players.

The argument that the government should force management plans on private land has long been contentious. Many small private landowners in rural areas of the province where stands of timber are still used by families as savings accounts have opposed being told how to manage their lands and raised concerns that policy makers and environmentalists in Halifax could devalue assets they depend upon.

“The recommendations are intended to improve the value of that bank account, not prevent it from being used,” responded Lahey in an interview with the Chronicle Herald on Tuesday.

He recommended that small private landowners be encouraged to more environmentally sensitive practices by education, persuasion and support – be it through management guidance or financial.

Large industrial players would be made responsible for achieving set outcomes to do with forest and soil health.

“With some exceptions the (Department of Lands and Forestry) has not invested nearly as much time on private land,” said Lahey. “At the end of day the forests that have to be improved from ecological and biodiversity are not just on Crown land.”

The filing of his review will likely be the end of Lahey’s involvement in the shakeup of how we manage forests in Nova Scotia. In parting, he encouraged that others be commissioned by the province to conduct such regular progress reports so that transparency and public accountability become more deeply entrenched in the culture of forest management.

“This is my last kick at the can,” he said.

“I think I’ve done my bit. It would be very positive and a source of optimism that the initial report will be implemented if other people were doing this kind of work in the future. It has to be a bigger process than Lahey, it has to be a Nova Scotia process.”

Whether the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables commissions more independent reviews, which could at times subject it to criticism, remains to be seen.

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2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

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