HALIFAX—The province has turned to public stakeholders to have a say in how it will change the way trees are harvested in Nova Scotia.

Lands and Forestry Minister Iain Rankin said feedback gathered from a Tuesday morning forum on ecological forestry – which focuses on the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity – will help his department as it moves forward with changes to Nova Scotia’s forestry practices.

In August 2018, Bill Lahey – president of the University of King’s College and a former deputy minister of environment – released his independent and sweeping review of forestry to the provincial government.

Lahey recommended the province “explicitly and officially adopt a triad model” that would see some land protected from all forestry; some land designated for intensive commercial forestry, including clear-cutting; and some land designated for “lighter touch” forestry with limited clear-cutting.

The province accepted the report in December 2018, saying it “agrees with the spirit and intent of his recommendations,” but hasn’t made any permanent changes since.

Raymond Plourde, the wilderness co-ordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, said he was glad to “finally” see the department bringing together stakeholders for updates and feedback.

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“I saw a lot of open ears from government staffers as well as the minister and I think that it was a largely positive first step,” Plourde said in a phone interview after attending the morning meetings.

The minister “really seems to have rolled up his sleeves and gotten into this in a big way,” trying to implement the 45 recommendations from the Lahey report.

“Having said that, they’re really still only at the internal policy and practice work ... it hasn’t translated to anything significant on the ground yet, and so people are still frustrated out there with the kind of harvesting they’re seeing. But I think that they’re on the right track.”

Rankin said his department expects to release a new forest management guide by December – a deadline it set when first responding to the Lahey report – which will lay out new clear-cutting guidelines.

“Once that guide is in place, you’ll see even further reductions of clear-cutting, so more in the direction of multi-age, multi-species management,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Rankin said four external experts – academics from universities across Canada and the U.S. – have been advising the government on eight priorities for ecological forestry, including the new forest management guide.

They’re also working on a small-scale, wood energy initiative, which concerned Plourde.

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He could support the idea of using biomass to heat public buildings, but only if the province closes “the big, inefficient biomass generators” currently used by Nova Scotia Power for electricity generation, and bans biomass export to foreign countries.

He said any wood burned for the proposed heating project should only come from sawmill waste, and “not from purpose-specific biomass harvesting.”

Plourde acknowledged there were competing interests among more than 100 stakeholders at Tuesday’s forum and there wasn’t consensus on how to implement Lahey’s recommendations. But he was pleased that Rankin is establishing an external advisory panel for further stakeholder collaboration.

According to Rankin’s prepared remarks, delivered at the forum, the department is enlisting Lahey to work with the advisory panel, which will “help us to identify opportunities to effectively deliver” on the review’s recommendations.

Jeff Bishop is the executive director of Forest Nova Scotia – an organization that represents the forestry industry – and said many of his members are concerned about how the Lahey recommendations will impact their wood supply from Crown land, which was the message he delivered to the department on Tuesday.

“Any time you make a change within a system to the level of what they’re talking about, there are potentials for significant changes. So because fibre supply from Crown is an important part of the overall supply, our folks really need to understand what that is,” he said in an interview.

Lahey’s recommendations and the government’s early response focus on Crown land, but Andy Kekacs, the executive director of Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association, said some private woodlot owners are ready to take the initiative to practice Lahey’s model on their own land.

His organization started a project this spring that will prioritize ecological forestry, but a major obstacle is what he perceives as a lack of understanding of Lahey’s recommendations.

“There’s still some confusion, legitimate confusion, about what they heck ecological forestry is. When people are explained ... the acceptance is really very high. I think it’s very consistent with the values that many small landowners have for the forest.”

“We hope that the government, when it finally gets its act together on Crown land, will join us and make that job go forward in ways that small landowners can understand and accept.”

Correction - June 26, 2019: This article was edited from an earlier version that said the province was considering using biomass to generate electricity for public buildings. In fact, the proposal is for using biomass to heat public buildings.

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