Letters November 2010

Need real woodsmen
AFR: A lot has been written lately about the need to reduce the amount of clearcutting in Nova Scotia and I agree that we do need to get back to cutting while keeping an overstory of trees. The Small Tree Act should be reinstated. However, the main issue seems to be left out.
Selection cutting takes a heck of a lot of skilled people. Those people on the ground have been almost non-existent to clean up the mess that grows up after clearcutting so the cut-and-run situation continues.
We really need a change in our education system so young people can understand how to grow a proper tree and know its value, benefits, and how to add value to the product. A respect for woods work has to be developed and people should be encouraged to take up logging for a living. Land values have to be adjusted to where production can pay for the lifelong investment, or at least such investments have to be understood.
Forestry workers involved in clearcuts today will tell you they can come back in 40 years, but 40-year-old clearcuts have only grown up into an unholy tangle because nobody ever sorted out the mess.
We truly need to get off the joysticks and onto the ground and become real woodsmen, and it will take a lot more people than we have now.
Charles Jess
Yarmouth, N.S.

Clearing the air
AFR: I would like to comment on some of the statements in your editorial “Whose wood is it?” in the July 2010 edition of Atlantic Forestry Review. I was on the Forest Panel as a Registered Professional Forester with almost 30 years experience in forest management in Nova Scotia and was not representing AbitibiBowater. In addition, I did not “quit the team” and I did actively participate in all the panel meetings unless there was a conflict in scheduling. Although it was not a requirement that the panels of expertise reach agreement on all issues, it became clear there were fundamental disagreements on the Forest Panel that would prevent producing a single report. With deadlines approaching, the overall Steering Panel agreed we could submit separate reports.
My concerns throughout the process were to make sure that recommendations were based on the best available science and principles of sound forest management, that private landowners maintain the ability to manage their own lands, and that we ensure the overall forest industry remains viable.
Dr. Wagner, the director of Maine’s School of Forest Resources, the director of the Cooperative Forest Research Unit, and the leader of the Acadian Forest Ecosystem Research Program, recently completed an independent review of the reports of the Steering Panel and the two Forest Panels. A couple of his key comments are below – the full report is available through the Forest Products Association of Nova Scotia.

“It should be recognized that regulatory restrictions on forestry practices, even relatively subtle ones, can have quick, dramatic, long-lasting, and many unintended consequences on the forest and forest-based industries.”

“Definitive recommendations like those presented in the Steering Panel report can only responsibly be made in my view after an informed and quantitative analysis of the risks, benefits, and tradeoffs that are likely to accrue for each forest policy recommendation. Forest landowners and the people of Nova Scotia deserve to see what they are likely to get in some form. Only then can politicians and policy makers make the claim that they have made responsible decisions about critical forest resource issues.”

In addition, Dr. Wagner also found that a number of the recommendations “were not consistent with the best available forest research or with the principles of sound forest management” and that the rationale for regulatory restrictions on certain practices “to be based on a weak scientific and/or technical justification.” I believe we need to continuously improve forest management practices in Nova Scotia. I also believe we need to move forward based on the best available science, and in a manner that supports and encourages private landowners and ensures that Nova Scotia continues to receive employment and economic benefits from a globally competitive forest industry. 
Jon Porter, RPF
Brooklyn, N.S.