Our Plan: Change the Forest Sustainability Regulations

On September 29, 2005, the Ecology Action Centre released the report “Nova Scotia’s Forest Sustainability Regulations and Uneven-aged Forest Management: Conflicts and Opportunities”. This report, a product of a workshop, interviews, and supplementary research, is an initiative by the Ecology Action Centre's Standing Tall campaign to help Nova Scotia's Forest Sustainability Regulations do a better job of supporting uneven-aged forestry. Uneven-aged forestry, involving selection harvesting, crop tree release, and other treatments, is the most appropriate management approach for the majority of Nova Scotia's Acadian forests. It is also needed to help Nova Scotia's forestry sector diversify into value-added processing of products like valuable hardwood sawlogs.

Uneven-aged management is rarely practiced in Nova Scotia, especially compared to even-aged treatments like clearcutting, planting and spraying. Contractors, landowners, and wood processors who want to practice good forestry in the form of uneven-aged silviculture told us that many of the challenges they face could be alleviated with changes to the Regulations' technical standards as well as funding mechanisms. Our recommendations, which focus on these two themes, do not propose an overhaul of the Forest Sustainability Regulations. Rather, they suggest relatively straightforward ways to make uneven-aged forestry more tenable and widespread in Nova Scotia.

Download the full report:

(If file will not download, right-click and "Save Target as...")

Executive Summary (PDF, 280 kb)

Full Report (PDF, 1.15 mb)