Nova Scotia DNR announces a short cut in public review of forest harvest plans 6Nov2025

Posted on November 6, 2025 by Admin

Received today, bolding inserted:

The Harvest Plans Map Viewer has been updated as of November 6, 2025. No proposed harvest plans were added. Please see the map at: https://nsgi.novascotia.ca/hpmv/

The next update is scheduled for November 17, 2025.We are making changes to how harvest proposals are reviewed and approved. Starting this fall, licensees will submit development plans that outline their proposed harvest operations for the coming 12 months. The majority of their proposed work on Crown land will be captured in these plans. Sometimes they may have individual proposals outside of these plans. The development plans will be posted on the Harvest Plans Map Viewer for comment for 40 days. If your comment provides information about the proposed harvest plan that is specific to the site, you may be contacted for further detail.

Harvest proposals that are not included in a development plan will be posted for comment for 20 days. These changes streamline the planning process while still keeping an avenue open for people to provide local knowledge about the sites being proposed for harvest. It’s one way that we’re supporting our forestry industry to sustainably manage forests on Crown land, create jobs for Nova Scotians and bring more than $2 billion a year into our provincial economy.We thank you for your interest.

COMMENT (David P) Continue reading →

Posted in Conservation, Landscape Level planning, NS DNR | Comments Off on Nova Scotia DNR announces a short cut in public review of forest harvest plans 6Nov2025

Rally Sat Nov 15, 2025 Halifax: Shoulder to Shoulder, We are All Treaty People

Posted on November 6, 2025 by Admin

If you live, work, play, or pray in Nova Scotia, we want you there. We want to hear your voices!
— Mi’kmaw land defenders Michelle Paul and Glenda Junta

Bring your community banners, signs, flags and regalia. Bring your drums, songs and prayers.

“Nature has rights; humans have responsibilities.” – Dr./Elder Albert Marshall

Read more

Posted in Indigenous-led Conservation, Reconciliation, Wabanaki Forest | Leave a comment

NatureNS on where we stand today on Protected Areas in Nova Scotia 26Oct2025

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Admin

And a comment on ForestNS’s assertion that we are “increasing wildfire risk by protecting too much land”.

Nature Nova Scotia has posted a comprehensive update on where we stand today on Protected Areas in Nova Scotia, noting

The province stopped designating new protected areas in 2024, leaving many parcels in the 2013 Parks and Protected Areas Plan unprotected. As of summer 2025, Nova Scotia is sitting at just 13.5% protected lands, less than 4 years away from the 2030 deadline for protecting 20%.”

The post opens with a photo of Owls Head, describing the background to the secretive delisting [by the Liberal Gov of the day] of Owls Head Provincial Park in 2020 revealed by investigative reporting by CBC journalist Michael Gorman.  Under a section on “Misinformation and Conflicting Interests”, NatureNS reminds us  how that factored into election of the PCs in 2021. Continue reading →

Posted in Citizen-proposed Protected Areas, Conservation, NS DNR, ProtectedAreas | Comments Off on NatureNS on where we stand today on Protected Areas in Nova Scotia 26Oct2025

On Thanksgiving 2025: In celebration of our Wabanaki/Acadian Forest 12Oct2025

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Admin

Click on images for larger versions

I took these photos yesterday on the Etu’qamikejk Trail in thanksgiving for and in celebration of the beauty, bounty and solace afforded by our Wabanaki-Acadian Forest – david p

Click on images for larger versions Continue reading →

Posted in Biophilia, Wabanaki Forest | Comments Off on On Thanksgiving 2025: In celebration of our Wabanaki/Acadian Forest 12Oct2025

NN: “I’m a citizen scientist working to protect Nova Scotia’s forests. Tim Houston is threatening to put me in jail” 2Oct2025

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Admin

“Jammed into a bill titled the Protecting Nova Scotians Act are amendments to the Crown Lands Act that will do just the opposite.

“The current law states that “No person, without lawful authority, shall barricade or post signs on a forest access road.” The amended law adds “block, obstruct the use of, impede access to” after “barricade.” Continue reading →

Posted in Citizen Sceince, Citizen-proposed Protected Areas, Conservation, Forest Roads, Freedom of Information, NS Gov, Wabanaki Forest | Comments Off on NN: “I’m a citizen scientist working to protect Nova Scotia’s forests. Tim Houston is threatening to put me in jail” 2Oct2025

Keeping History Alive: the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia 30Sep2025

Posted on September 30, 2025 by Admin

From The Narwhal, this a.m.:

From The Narwhal Newsletter, Sep 30, 2025.
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One hundred and forty federally run residential schools operated across Canada for more than a century; so did dozens of other institutions run by other authorities, all designed to forcibly assimilate generations of Indigenous children. In 1997, the last school — Kivalliq Hall in Rankin Inlet, Nvt. — finally closed its doors. But the traces of these institutions linger on the land, in derelict buildings, on street names like “Indian School Road” and in the makeshift memorials erected on former grounds: children’s toys, tiny shoes and offerings of tobacco and sweetgrass. Continue reading →
Posted in Reconciliation | Comments Off on Keeping History Alive: the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia 30Sep2025

“Mi’kmaq Establish Cultural Revitalization Camp at Hunters Mountain to Protect Sacred Land and Medicines” 16Sep2025

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Admin

Received by NSFN, From: unamakimedicinecamp
Mon, Sep 15, 2025
Subject: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mi’kmaq Establish Cultural Revitalization Camp at Hunters Mountain in Unama’ki

Photo by NN during visit to Hunters Mountain Mi’kmaw protest on Sep 9, 2025 to take supplies and donations from SOOF. View related social media post

Unama’ki – More than 100 Mi’kmaw rights holders have established a cultural revitalization camp at the foot of Hunters Mountain in Cape Breton, transforming what began as a logging blockade into a centre for traditional medicine gathering and cultural teachings.

“We’re not only asserting our rights,” says Allison Bernard, of Eskasoni First Nation. “We’re reclaiming our culture and traditions. This mountain is a part of us. Our ancestors are here. Our relatives the moose are here.” Read More

Posted in Indigenous-led Conservation, NS DNR, Reconciliation, Wabanaki Forest | Comments Off on “Mi’kmaq Establish Cultural Revitalization Camp at Hunters Mountain to Protect Sacred Land and Medicines” 16Sep2025

Keith Egger to Premier Houston on “Meeting your 20% by 2030 obligations” 2Sep2025

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Admin

Keith Egger collecting mushrooms in an old deciduous forest in Kejimkujik National Park. On the rotting log in the foreground is Eastern American Platterful Mushroom (Megacollybia rodmanii) a common spring inhabitant of decomposing wood.
Click on images for larger versions.

The post is adapted from the text of a letter written by Keith Egger addressed to Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, Minister of Natural Resources Tory Rushton, and to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Tim Halman; it was sent on Aug 13, 2025. We had seen a copy of it and Keith graciously agreed to our posting it and providing  some supplementary photos and info. about himself.

In the letter, Keith addresses the apprehension that many of us feel about the NS Government’s commitment to achieving 20%  protection by 2030. For example,  he comments that he had  heard members of the NS government suggest that protecting areas that can’t be logged (e.g. steep hillsides and ravines, islands, wet forests) might be a path to reach protection and explains why that would not be an ecologically sensible strategy.

Keith is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecosystem Science & Management at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, BC. He retired after 29 years studying microbial diversity and ecology and moved to Nova Scotia in 2019. He has been active since retirement studying mushroom diversity in Nova Scotia’s old-growth forests.

– NSFN Continue reading →

Posted in Conservation, Landscape Level planning, NS Gov, ProtectedAreas | Comments Off on Keith Egger to Premier Houston on “Meeting your 20% by 2030 obligations” 2Sep2025

Nova Scotia DNR puts a hold on new forest harvest decisions pending end of the Woods Ban 20Aug2025

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Admin

UPDATE , received from Forestry Maps, Sep 2, 2025:
As of August 29th, at 4pm travel restrictions were lifted for the following counties as noted in this news release. Woods Restrictions Lifted in Some Counties, Remain in Others | Government of Nova Scotia News Releases: Cape Breton, Richmond, Victoria, Inverness, Guysborough, Antigonish, Halifax. Therefore, the pause on updates to the Harvest Plans Map Viewer has been lifted for the above counties. All plans will receive an “open for comment” status of 40 days, which excludes the time period of the travel restrictions. The burn ban remains in place for the entire province until October 15 or until conditions improve further.

ORIGINAL POST

Received from NS Forestry Maps today (Aug 20, 2025): Continue reading →

Posted in Citizen Sceince, NS DNR | Comments Off on Nova Scotia DNR puts a hold on new forest harvest decisions pending end of the Woods Ban 20Aug2025

Citizen Scientists of SW Nova Scotia ask DNR Minister to put a hold on new forest harvest decisions pending end of the Woods Ban 11Aug 2025

Posted on August 11, 2025 by Admin

Write the Citizen Scientists:

Aug 8, 2025
To: Honourable Tory Rushton, Minister of Natural Resources, Nova Scotia
Topic: Stop the clock on all harvest approvals

Dear Minister Rushton,
Please pause all harvest approvals on crown land until the woods are open to the public again.

Why? Because formal opportunity for the public to comment on proposed harvest plans is required as part of DNR’s Integrated Resource Management process for approving harvest plans. All comments made on a specific harvest plan are included in the approval documents for that plan. In order to gather these comments, harvest plans are posted on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer. The public is given 40 days to comment.

As of August 5th, the public cannot access Crown land forests. This makes it impossible to visit the plan areas to gather the site specific data that is requested. As a result, the clock for each 40 day comment period must be stopped as of August 5th. It should be restarted when the woods are open to the public. Continue reading →

Posted in Citizen Sceince, Citizen-proposed Protected Areas, Conservation, Species At Risk, Sustainable Wood Harvests, SW Nova Scotia | Comments Off on Citizen Scientists of SW Nova Scotia ask DNR Minister to put a hold on new forest harvest decisions pending end of the Woods Ban 11Aug 2025