Atlantic Forestry March 2021

Without further delay?

Nova Scotia got a new premier in February – not resulting from an election, but by virtue of some 8,000 provincial Liberal Party delegates casting virtual ballots for a new leader, to replace Stephen McNeil. In the midst of a pandemic, this discreet changing of the guard might not have attracted national attention, let alone international attention, except for the fact that Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin tweeted out a joke about taking on his new role, suggesting he might nationalize Tim Hortons once the levers of power are in his hands – which is actually funny in a couple different ways. 

The real Premier Rankin (who was born in Inverness, Cape Breton, and spells his name “Iain” – the Scottish way) – has no such mundane socialist aspirations, but he has his own extensive to-do list. He is a young guy, just 37, and in his leadership campaign he positioned himself as someone who could appeal to younger voters, partly with a strong environmental platform. Naturally, that includes forestry – which is always a bit of a hot potato for politicians. But Rankin held the forestry portfolio before he made his run for the top job, and he probably knows the file better than anyone else in government. 

McNeil had an easy ride during his last year on the job. COVID allowed him to play the stern but empathetic dad, while avoiding the bothersome aspects of democracy – like sitting in the legislature, and responding to opposition and media questions about wide-ranging policy issues. Whether he deserves credit for this or not, Nova Scotians’ relatively painless pandemic experience (at least, thus far) will be a big part of his legacy. But on forestry, McNeil’s record is mixed, at best. 

Among industry players, the former premier is widely blamed for the closure of Northern Pulp, because he declined to amend the Boat Harbour Act, which set a 2020 deadline for closure of the notorious effluent treatment facility. The legislation had all-party support when it was passed in 2015, and it seemed a reasonable approach to redressing a legacy that was figuratively as well as literally toxic. But in the intervening years, things went off the rails, with the government and the company blaming each other for delays in getting a replacement facility approved and built in a timely fashion.

Among Nova Scotians who wanted to see forestry policies and practices shift toward ecological sustainability – and this includes a great many woodlot owners – McNeil is widely blamed for delaying substantive change. The Natural Resources Strategy – a years-long process implemented under his predecessor Darrell Dexter – had resulted in a series of directives, including reduced clearcutting, a ban on public funding for forest herbicides, and controls on whole-tree harvesting. After McNeil came to power in 2013, former Bowater Mersey woodlands manager Jonathan Porter was named executive director of DNR’s Renewable Resources Branch, which sent a strong signal to forestry companies; with a member of their tribe now running the show, they likely were not surprised when the despised strategy directives went by the wayside. 

In the 2017 election campaign, McNeil kicked the can further down the road by promising an independent review on forestry. Upon being re-elected, he appointed William Lahey, president of the University of King’s College, to lead the review. While some environmentalists complained that this new process would be redundant, many recognized Lahey as credible. Unlike the Dexter-era strategy proceedings, which put a lot of weight on public opinion, Lahey was heavy on impartial expertise, which seemed more likely to result in a coherent and robust plan for changing the way things were done. Industry players, for their part, had every reason to feel assured that their forestry practices could continue as usual for several more years.

MOVING PARTS

In 2018, the provincial Department of Natural Resources was renamed Lands and Forestry, and McNeil gave the minister’s job to Rankin, who had previously overseen the Department of Environment. Soon afterwards, Lahey released his report, and the government accepted all 45 of his recommendations. The cornerstone is a “triad” model, which involves Crown lands being zoned either for conservation; for intensive plantation management; or for “ecological matrix” management, which is oriented toward creating older, uneven-age, multi-species stands with a high level of biodiversity.

This entailed reworking the provincial forest management guide and the pre-treatment assessment process – no small task. But implementing Lahey involves a great many more deliverables, such as improving provincial “state of the forest” reporting; addressing deficiencies in protection and recovery planning for species-at-risk; providing markets for low-grade fibre by converting more public buildings to wood heat; identifying suitable Crown sites for high-production (plantation) forestry; publishing peer-reviewed literature on natural disturbance regimes; updating policies on old-growth forests; incorporating environmental assessments into the regulatory framework for Crown management; and completing the province’s nutrient budget model. 

To say that there are a lot of moving parts here is an understatement. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that this would take a while, but public confidence in the process diminished as months turned to years. By the fall of 2020, there was frustration within the 14-member ministerial advisory committee that Rankin had appointed to assist with implementing the plan – and seven of them submitted a joint letter asking for a moratorium on all even-aged harvest treatments on Crown land until new ecological standards were fully in effect. “Prescriptions that lead to even-aged forests remain common on Crown lands,” they wrote. “Harvest plans that specify heavy cutting are being submitted and approved at a rapid pace, with little apparent regard to the ecological impacts that Lahey warned about.”

They expressed particular concern about the fact that WestFor, the mill consortium that manages Crown land in the southwestern region, had harvest plan approvals lined up five years in advance. “This arguably represents a de-facto rejection of Lahey’s findings,” stated the letter. “It is long past time for government to take significant action to transform forest policy and management in Nova Scotia.”

There has not yet been any government explanation as to how Crown harvest plans are being evaluated in this period of Lahey limbo – though sawmills are clearly making the most of Crown wood supply while lumber markets are strong. There is a draft forest management guide – actually known as the “Silvicultural Guide for the Ecological Matrix” – which was released earlier this winter for a 30-day review period. For the time being, data could be plugged into its decision-making keys to revise existing harvest plans, to better reflect the new direction being taken on Crown land. 

However, the guide itself still needs to be revised – and some readers have stumbled across a few head-scratchers in the draft. For example, according to the sub-key for restoration in intolerant hardwood stands, the prescription for certain types of sites is 80 percent overstory removal followed by planting – which doesn’t jibe with popular conceptions of what ecological forestry is supposed to look like. If this were to end up being a common outcome in the matrix zone, it wouldn’t go over very well. That requires some clarification. And there are also questions to be answered about which Crown lands will be devoted to high-production forestry, which is explicitly unecological.

Meanwhile, on Feb. 17 the Wood Products Manufacturers Association of Nova Scotia, which appears to represent all the mills in the province except for the Irving sawmill in Bible Hill, issued a press release expressing their unified support for implementing Lahey’s recommendations in their entirety, without further delay. Earle Miller, the group’s president, is quoted as saying, “There has been enough deliberation and planning.” It’s a remarkable statement – because until quite recently, a number of these industry players would have been hostile toward the types of changes Lahey has proposed. (This is an organization that opposed the provincial Wildlife Habitat and Watercourses Protection Regulations.) What they want now, clearly, is an end to the uncertainty about Crown forest management.

Rankin is under a lot of pressure to get this done, and he has said it will happen within the year. His appointee as the new minister of Lands and Forestry, the former paramedic (and former Progressive Conservative) Chuck Porter, does not seem an obvious choice, but maybe he was the only one who stepped up. Maybe the premier intends to quarterback this, taking a hands-on approach to implementation.

Lahey himself has expressed enthusiasm for expediting the process. “I tried to convey the urgency of action two and a half years ago,” he recently told HalifaxToday. “I share the concerns of many that we are not heading in the right direction until we implement a model of forestry along the lines of what I have recommended, and all further delay just increases the urgency for action.”

But Rankin needs to get this right, which means making sure there are no unpleasant surprises, and living up to the high standards of transparency by which he has sought to differentiate himself from his predecessor. Measure twice, as the saying goes.  DL