Province invests $5 million to help goal of reducing clear cutting

Minister of Natural Resources Charlie Parker has announced a $5 million investment to help achieve Nova Scotia’s goal of reducing clear cutting to 50% of the total harvest over the next five years.

The decision was based on outside consultation, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

Consultant Peter Woodbridge says the plan won’t put the industry out of business if the mitigation strategy to woo owners is implemented properly.

“It’s a very poor word, but it’s a restructuring of the industry to start to bring new people in, to train and to engage the woodlot owners in a commercial enterprise going forward,” he says. “They’re very significant changes, the bottom line is – will it be sufficient? We don’t know but it’s definitely in the right direction.”

Woodbridge says the government must ensure more private woodlot owners are brought into the wood supply mix.

Minister Parker says that’s exactly what his ministry plans to do.

“Re-engagement with the private woodlot owner is… With 30,000 owners and over half of our wood-base out there in private hands, anywhere from 30 acres to several thousand acres, these are the folks who are really key to this strategy moving forward.”

Parker says private woodlot owners have moved away from the industry for a number of reasons.

He adds they need to attract people, specifically young people, back into the fold.

But we don’t know how many of the 30,000 private woodlot owners are or would be interested in selling timber commercially, and at this point, there isn’t a workable definition for “clear cutting”.  The other unknown is when the new ‘clear cutting’ policies will be put into effect.  

Parker says that will be released with the upcoming natural resources strategy sometime in the spring.

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