N.B.’s new forest plan protects more Crown land from industry, minister says | CBC News
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New Brunswick is taking steps to protect more Crown forest, consult First Nations on forestry management, and allow for uses other than timber harvesting, Natural Resources Minister Mike Holland said Wednesday.
Holland announced a long-term strategy for Crown forests that he said will see the percentage of protected Crown forest increase to 30 per cent from 23 per cent.
At the same time, Holland said, practices such as herbicide spraying and clear cutting, which the forest industry has used over the past 40 years, will allow cutting to continue at the current rate — or a potentially higher rate — without expanding the area where timber can be harvested intensively.
“We’re going to create more opportunity for the industry to benefit and grow from the same footprint,” Holland said, referring to about 20 per cent of Crown forest.
Natural Resources Minister Mike Holland says the new strategy will ‘bring balance’ and protect more forests from intensive timber harvesting.
Holland said about another 50 per cent will also allow timber harvesting, but with “an eye towards natural regeneration, an eye towards hardwood, an eye towards ensuring structure stays in harvested areas so that we have different age structures going forward.”
The strategy will also see a reduction in the amount of hardwood that is destroyed to “long-term sustainable levels,” by leaving more residual canopy and legacy trees, according to a report also released Wednesday.
The province will accelerate spending on silviculture programs that will see increased planting following the harvest of tree stands that were planted in the 1980s and 1990s.
Another key part of the strategy will see 5,000 hectares of Crown land leased out for maple syrup production.
Green leader fears expansion of intensive harvesting
But Green Party Leader David Coon said the new forest strategy is mostly a win for the timber industry.
While the province will conserve more Crown land, Coon said, he’s concerned intensive harvesting will expand into new parts of Crown land.
“What they’re doing is increasing the area within the industrial forest that will be farmed rather than managed as a forest, so they will obliterate another 400,000 acres of natural Acadian Wabanaki forest and replace it with tree plantation,” Coon said.
Asked about Coon’s criticism of the plan, Holland responded later on Wednesday saying Coon’s interpretation of the strategy was inaccurate.
Holland said what will get newly targeted for harvesting are specifically balsam fir trees that were planted in the 1990s, which are now mature and faring poorly because of climate change.
He said the plan won’t see new areas of clear-cut Crown forest but will see a focus on harvesting balsam firs and replanting them with spruce trees.
“There will be no more mixed-stands converted to single-species softwood,” Holland said.
Holland said the strategy was developed in consultation with First Nations groups, and it will affirm the treaty rights to hunt and fish in specific parts of the province.
First Nations criticize consultation
But Holland drew criticism from First Nations leaders, who accused the government of not properly consulting with them and even rejecting proposals they made.
“They unilaterally proposed an accommodation package that did not meaningfully address our concerns, and refused to
consider negotiating any changes to it,” Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn Inc., which represents Mi’kmaq First Nations, said in a news release.
“In particular, they ruled out a shared decision-making structure, without providing any reasons for doing so.”
The Wolastoqey Nation in New Brunswick also released a statement Wednesday, attributed to Neqotkuk First Nation Chief Ross Perley, calling out the strategy for having “several shortcomings.”
Revenue-sharing not addressed, chief says
“During consultation, the Wolastoqey Nation proposed many ways to improve the Forest Strategy’s accommodation of Aboriginal and treaty rights,” Perley said in the news release.
“Some were accepted, but many were rejected without explanation by the minister or his department.”
Perley said major shortcomings in the strategy include a lack of discussion of revenue-sharing with Wolastoqey communities, as well as a lack of response to recommended improvements to logging in old-growth forests, species at risk protections and herbicide spraying.
“The government rightly notes it has an onus to act with integrity, respect Aboriginal rights, and live up to its legislated duties when it comes to decisions that could have an adverse impact on Aboriginal and treaty rights,” Perley said.
“This strategy doesn’t achieve that important standard.”
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