Oldest Tree In The Maritimes

It has recently been discovered  that an Eastern hemlock is the oldest known tree in Nova Scotia and the Maritimes.

The tree, located in a stand not far from the South Panuke Wilderness Area, northwest of Hubbards, was measured to be 532 years old. 

That is a respectable age for a tree in the Eastern Forest. With the tiny amount of old growth left in the Maritimes, it is a wonder that any trees this old continue to exist.

The land the tree is on used to be owned by the Bowater Mersey Paper Company. The province bought the parcel, along with many others, in 2012.

Are there older trees in Nova Scotia? 

Undoubtably. 

Do they, and all old growth, deserve protection?

Absolutely. 

They are a global wonder and treasure, and are worth more standing.

Nova Scotia Forests "Severely Depleted"

"Today, old growth forests (over 150 years old) are a rarity in Nova Scotia. In fact, less than 1% (0.6%) of our forests are over 100 years old. Most are found in small isolated stands that are not big enough for wildlife species requiring large areas of undisturbed forests, such as bears and martens." - source

An Open Letter to Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil from the Healthy Forest Coalition

MIKE LANCASTER·THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

An Open Letter to Premier Stephen McNeil

Dear Premier McNeil, Nova Scotia’s working forests are severely depleted. Currently a few mills are scrambling to harvest the last remaining stands of quality timber while the rest of our forest enterprises are reduced to cutting young and early successional stands for pulp and biomass. Our working forests are becoming vast tree farms where biodiversity is dying and boreal species replace our Acadian forest.

We could be nurturing a new forest. A forest that is representative of the species dominant here for centuries and best suited to our soils and climate. Over time this Acadian forest could restore bio-diversity to our landscape and revive our forest economy.

Only government can start this process. Only you can provide the leadership we need.

 We ask you to revisit the values the public expressed in the 2008-9 consultation and urge you to:

1. Inspire Nova Scotians with a new vision of the forest. Set goals. Create a regime of forest management that will enhance biodiversity and realize the full potential of our timber and non-timber resources.
2. End the conflict of interest at DNR. Create a new department with pre-eminent responsibility for stewardship of our resources and assign to a separate commission the allocation and marketing of those resources deemed to be available.
3. Recognize that there are strong economic and scientific data that support a major change in policy. Ensure that biological sciences influence stewardship policy and that landscape level factors – not narrow stand-level considerations - drive harvest decisions.
4. End policies that exploit resources. Impose a moratorium on clearcutting and two-stage clearcutting on Crown lands. Stop treating Crown lands as reserves for private mills. End intensive forest management and ban the export of unprocessed wood and wood chips.
5. Introduce policies that reward stewardship and conservation. Encourage ecologically sensitive harvesting of forest resources with programmes that reward silviculture (in its broadest sense) and minimize the use of the larger and heavier harvesters. Foster non-timber forest products. Such changes can reverse the decline of employment in our woods.
6. Strengthen the small private woodland sector. Enhance the role of woodlot owner organizations and recognize their potential for collective bargaining.
7. Introduce a strategy that will accord woodlot owners the economic benefits of carbon off-sets.
8. Recognize that tourism based on our beautiful forested land and seascape brings employment to Nova Scotia’s rural areas.

These steps are feasible. They will not be accomplished easily. The reward will be a forest legacy rich in biodiversity and broad economic benefit.

Yours respectfully,

The Healthy Forest Coalition

Lament For My Forest Refuge

"Machinery in the middle of the forest can only mean one thing: clearcutting."

The following sad letter is reprinted from The Chronicle Hearld, November 18, 2017.

LETTER OF THE WEEK: Lament for my forest refuge

It’s 12:48 a.m. I lie awake.

My brother said he heard machinery near the old hunting camp located up the Ohio Road, past Indian Fields on Black Lake, Shelburne County. Machinery in the middle of the forest can only mean one thing: clearcutting.

I go on Google Timelapse, zoom in to the camp and stare at my computer screen that flashes aerial images from 1984 to 2016. First, I see green forest. Then it turns into degraded patches of brown. The word that comes to mind as my stomach turns sick is “leech” — just sucking the life force out of the land and scarring it. It is the death of an Acadian Forest.

When I was a child, I’d escape to the forest at the back of the camp. The huge trees were magical and nothing like I’d ever seen before, reaching towards the sky. My little arms would embrace their trunks; I was never able to grasp around and lock my fingers. I’d lay my cheek on their bark listening to my heart beat.

The thick moss comforted me and I’d drift asleep while seeing the dancing branches and clouds way up above me. This was my sanctuary.

The camp is leased from the province and is located on Crown land. It’s a small plot that, to me, was at the edge of the Earth.

Machinery has changed. As a child, I remember thinking that this place would be left untouched. At age 49, I lie here awake, thinking about those trees that gave me life and peace. They will crash towards the earth en masse. Not selectively. Not in a sustainable way. But in a way that saves companies money.

My throat tightens. Tears fall down my cheeks. I grieve.

Shelly Hipson, Atlantic,

Shelburne County