 
CBC posting, Oct 12, 2012: : Halifax man slams NDP clearcut policy with billboardUPDATE (September, 2012): A New clearcut definition was announced by the province on August 15, 2012. It's major benefit is to allow the Nova Scotia government to claim they have achieved a 50% reduction in clearcutting already. In reality, it legitimizes continuation of what is effectively clearcutting on all forested land. By the new clearcut definition, you "can reduce the forest to a scattering of trees that need only be a little more than 4 feet tall. Within a "non clearcut", 40% of the ground can be devoid of any trees, and in the remaining 60%, as long as some scraggly 4-foot-and-3-inches-high balsam fir or tamarack remain (standing or not), then presto, it's not a clearcut. And when determining if the embarrassingly low threshold has been met, feel free to include trees up to 25 metres into the surrounding forest, outside of the cut." - Jamie Simpson, Aug. 17th: Government's Clearcutting Definition: Why did they bother?See also: NDP definition far from clearcut, opinion piece by Jamie Simpson published in the Chronicle Herald, Aug. 25th, 2012. UPDATE (May 6, 2012): Almost a year and a half after the Dec 1, 2010 announcement, Nova Scotia's NDP Government has failed to follow through on its commitment to substantially reduce clearcutting. (The first step in that direction was to shift Mininster MacDonnell to another portfolio.) It's so bad that "the four Hodgson brothers who ran one of the largest harvesters and chippers of wood fibre in the province, producing 300,000 tonnes annually, are getting out... "the wood has gotten younger and younger and the lot sizes have gotten smaller," said Hodgson. "Last year, we were cutting 30-year-old softwood that should have been left for another 10 to 15 years." Spruce is generally considered mature and ready to be cut after about 40 years of growth "It's common in northern Nova Scotia, you just have to look at the size of the trees heading down the highway on trucks to know too much of it is too young." Vaughn and his brothers made the decision to shutdown the company while still solvent and sell their equipment while someone may still want it. Read more View original post (July 2010): Nova Scotia Natural Resources Strategy in the works0 Posted 6 May, 2012. Update 16 Oct. 2012 |
