3 years since Lahey report, advocates say ‘virtually nothing’ has been done

The Lahey report — by University of King’s College president Bill Lahey — on forestry practices that reduce clear-cutting was released in 2018.

At the time, the government accepted recommendations in the report that were supposed to be implemented within the first year.

Since then, advocates say, very little has been done. According to a press release by eight provincial environmental and community organizations, advocates believe the government is “dragging their feet” and that “forestry companies are trying to get in and cut as much as they can before the new Lahey regulations are put in place.”

The organizations are demanding an immediate suspension of all logging on Crown lands until the government is ready to implement the recommendations made in the report and change destructive forest harvesting practices in the province.

Elanor Kure from Extinction Nova Scotia believes the stalling “has something to do with the pockets of forestry companies.”

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Tory Rushton, the minister of Renewable Resources says he understands the concerns of the delay and that training is currently taking place on the ground.

“We’re moving forward with the recommendations and we’re working with stakeholders to make sure we’re going in the right direction, as a government, with what Nova Scotia’s wishes are,” he told Global News.

1:59 Forestry advocates call on N.S. premier to reduce clear cutting

But Bob Bancroft, president of Nature Nova Scotia, called Rushton’s comment “balderdash.”

“We actually worked with First Nations and mapped out where the traditional moose areas were on public land and I finally got a letter about three months later from the minister saying, ‘That’s not good science.’ Well, I saw the moose tracks,” he said.

The group says that the government needs to act immediately or else “more biodiverse forests will continue to be lost if implementation is pushed off for two or more years.”

“You guys just saw what happened in B.C. with the floods. We are in a climate and biodiversity crisis and with the storms we’re having recently across Canada and the wildfires that then create landslides and flooding — that’s where we’re heading,” said Kure.

“We are headed toward a planet that is unlivable and species are going to be wiped out and we’re (a) species too, and we’re not going to be here.”