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Natural Resources approves hauling road into Ship Harbour Long Lake wilderness

July 31, 2001

The Department of Natural Resources quietly approved a request from paper giant Kimberly-Clark to proceed with widespread clearcutting and road building within a proposed protected area on the Eastern Shore, even though the Department of Environment & Labour listed portions of the site as a priority area for possible future protection and is now considering assessing the entire site for protection.

Maps acquired by the Ecology Action Centre under the Freedom of Information Act show the company plans 122.5 hectares of clearcuts and 6.8 km of new logging roads within the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area in 2001. The proposed Wilderness Area, south of the Musquodoboit Valley, is roughly half the size of Kejimkujik National Park and contains over fifty undeveloped lakes, traditional canoe routes, old pine and spruce trees, and some of the last large tracts of wild forest in Halifax County. It is all publicly owned.

Over 120 Eastern Shore businesses and 2,400 people have endorsed a petition supporting protection status.

Included in the logging approvals is a new 6.3km road into the heart of one of the site's most pristine forests at the head of Lake Charlotte.

The cutting approvals are seen by many observers as the latest conflict between the logging-oriented Department of Natural Resources and the protection-minded Environment Department. Last summer then Deputy Minister of the Environment George Fox wrote his counterpart at Natural Resources to request that the status of "priority areas" be left intact to allow for further evaluation.

"These two departments have to get their act together. While they argue, the very lands that ought to be preserved are being approved for clearcutting," according to Kermit deGooyer, the Centre's Wilderness Coordinator.

In May Environment Minister David Morse asked his staff to advise him on the feasibility of conducting a comprehensive Wilderness Area assessment for the Ship Harbour Long Lake. The Nova Scotia Public Lands Coalition, a diverse partnership of tourism, wildlife, and recreation groups is calling on the Province to suspend logging activities at Ship Harbour Long Lake until that evaluation is completed.

"We hope the government will agree to this request for a 'time out'. It makes sense in this case to buy time for a protection assessment and allow the Province to consider saving this beautiful part of Nova Scotia before it's lost," says Judith Cabrita, Managing Director, Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia.

• Click here for a profile of the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area

Ship Harbour Long Lake Area Maps

Ship Harbour Long Lake the left (i.e., east) side of the lake is targeted for clearcutting	End of the road?...where the new 6.3 km logging road would begin, just north of Faulkner Lake

New Roads Approved For 2001:

The 6.3 km road is mapped to the right. This page is taken from Kimberly-Clark's 2001 Operating Plan for Crown lands.

The Department of Natural Resources has approved 6.8 km of new logging roads within the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area for 2001. This includes 6.3 km between Ship Harbour Long Lake and Fish River and 0.5 km north of Scraggy Lake.

An intrusive 6.3km network of logging roads (shown as the dashed black line) is planned for the roadless area just north of where the Fish River and Ship Harbour Long Lake flow into Lake Charlotte. This area is among the most significant wild forests within the proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area

Orange cross-hatched areas depict likely clearcutting areas. A location map is posted below.

Location Map

The following is a map of the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area (green). The red rectangle in the center depicts the area mapped in detail.

New Clearcuts Approved For 2001:

This map depicts six new clearcutting areas within the proposed Wilderness Area for 2001. See table below for details.

The Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area is shown in green.

Clearcuts approved for 2001: (total: 122.5 hectares)

Letter From Ecology Action Centre to Environment Minister Hon. David Morse

July 13, 2001

RE: Development plans in the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area

Dear Mr. Morse:

This letter is intended to:

(a) provide an update on public support for a Wilderness Area designation of the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area;

(b) review what we understand to be your Department's interest in Ship Harbour Long Lake;

(c) notify your Department of threats to the proposed Wilderness Area posed by the Department of Natural Resources' approval of Kimberly-Clark's 2000/2001 annual operating plans, which call for aggressive clearcutting and road building within the site's boundaries (EAC recently acquired these plans through a Freedom of Information application.);

(d) request that your Department and the Department of Natural Resources immediately work to keep the proposed Wilderness Area intact pending an evaluation of protection options for the site;

(e) propose for your consideration that DEL play a formal role in the operating plan approval process and that potential candidate protected areas be left intact pending an opportunity for the Department to assess them for protection.

Public support

As you know, wilderness protection for the proposed 17,000 hectare Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area, enjoys a high level of public support:

• The Premier has received roughly 600 letters from individuals supporting the protection of Ship Harbour Long Lake.
• Over 120 Eastern Shore businesses have endorsed the protection of Ship Harbour Long Lake.
• Eastern Shore MLA Bill Dooks has received a copy of a 2,400 signature petition endorsing the protection of Ship Harbour Long Lake.
• The Nova Scotia Public Lands Coalition, which represents over 15,000 Nova Scotians and includes large province-wide organizations such as the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters, and the Nova Scotia Salmon Association, supports the protection of Ship Harbour Long Lake, along with an interim development moratorium to keep the site intact pending formal protection
• The Premier has received over 700 e-mails from Nova Scotians endorsing the Coalition's position. These messages were copied to your department.
• In July 2000 HRM Council passed a unanimous resolution calling on the Department of the Environment "to undertake a study into the feasibility of designating the proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Areas Protection Act as soon as possible". In a letter to the Premier, HRM Mayor Peter Kelly offered that, if requested, HRM would be willing to assist the Department in this study. Local HRM Councillor Steve Streatch has also written the Department to request an assessment.
• Eastern Shore MLA Bill Dooks wrote you on April 19, 2001, to add his support for a protected area at Ship Harbour Long Lake and to personally request that the Department undertake a Wilderness Area assessment for the site "as soon as possible".
• Repeated editorial and opinion pieces in the media have supported the protection of more Crown lands in general.

As Ship Harbour Long Lake becomes better known, its appeal as a future Wilderness Area continues to grow. It is widely seen as one of the most outstanding remaining unprotected wildlands in Nova Scotia and a place worth preserving.

A summary of organizations, businesses, agencies, etc. that endorse the designation of the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Areas Protection Act is attached.

Department of Environment and Labour interest in Ship Harbour Long Lake

This public support has thankfully not fallen on deaf ears. In May of this year you wrote to Eastern Shore MLA Bill Dooks, "You may be aware that the provincial government and my department has received a great deal of correspondence proposing new protected areas across the province, including the Ship Harbour Long Lake area. Due, in part, to this interest, my department is continuing to work closely with DNR on procedures for the assessment and review of proposals for protected areas on Crown lands."

The Department has also documented its interest in evaluating protection options specifically for Ship Harbour Long Lake. Again, in your letter to Mr. Dooks, "I have directed staff in the Protected Areas program to provide me with an overview of protection-oriented values of the Ship Harbour Long Lake area and to also provide me with comments on the feasibility of conducting a more comprehensive study (as we are currently doing for Eigg Mountain and Gully Lake) in consideration of the availability of staff and resources."

It is encouraging that DEL is now considering a comprehensive wilderness assessment for the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area, particularly as the Department has documented its awareness of "significant natural and outdoor recreation values within this area, and of the presence of certain ecosystems and elements that are not well represented in Nova Scotia's parks and protected areas system" in correspondence dating back to January 2000.

Threats to Ship Harbour Long Lake - harvesting and road building plans

Your department, the Premier, and the Minister of Natural Resources, Hon. Ernest Fage, have received a great deal of correspondence over the past twenty months requesting a development moratorium on Crown lands within the proposed Wilderness Area so that it can remain intact long enough to be fairly evaluated for protection.

This request again requires your urgent consideration.

Last month the Ecology Action Centre acquired Kimberly-Clark's 2000 annual operating plan for Crown (i.e., public) lands in Halifax County and approved portions of the company's 2001 plan to May 25, 2001. The operating plans show the location and extent of proposed road construction and forest harvesting approved by the Department of Natural Resources for lands leased to the company under a 1965 agreement with the Province of Nova Scotia. Under this lease, the company has access to log most public forests (roughly 830km²) in eastern Halifax County until 2015. The lease includes roughly 70% of the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area.

The plans were obtained through an application under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. This application was required because the Department of Natural Resources does not make operating plans publicly available and Kimberly-Clark did not respond to repeated written and telephone requests from the Ecology Action Centre and the Eastern Shore Forest Watch to make the plans available.

The operating plans show that the Department of Natural Resources has approved considerable new road building and widespread clearcutting within the boundaries of the proposed Wilderness Area, and by extension within lands that DEL has long recognized as exhibiting significant protection-oriented values, and as meriting consideration for a comprehensive wilderness area assessment. Application of these plans would effectively ruin the wilderness within significant portions of the proposed Wilderness Area before the Department even has the opportunity to assess the lands for protection. We believe this matter requires your urgent attention.

Summary of operating plans

In reviewing the 2000/2001 operating plans to May 25, 2001, it appears that approval for forestry activities within the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area has included:

• 11 cut blocks totaling 225.5 hectares of clearcutting (note: This figure recognizes that some individual cut blocks approved in the 2000 plan were approved again in the 2001 plan. They are not counted twice.). Some of these areas have already been cut.
• 6.8 km of road construction approved in 2001, including a 6.3 km road into one of the site's most pristine forests, situated between the lower Fish River, the eastern shore of Ship Harbour Long Lake and the top of Lake Charlotte; additional roads approved in 2000.

The plans are attached for your review.

It seems obvious that clearcutting and road building on this scale places the prospect of a world-class Wilderness Area at Ship Harbour Long Lake in jeopardy. The plans are incompatible with preserving protection-oriented values in the affected areas, risk diminishing the wild character of the proposed Wilderness Area as a whole, and if executed, would trivialize whatever protection evaluation the Department might embark upon.

In correspondence, you have stated, "DEL is responsible for conducting inventories and studies to document protection and outdoor recreation values and to make recommendations to government concerning protection options, where warranted." We trust you will agree that Ship Harbour Long Lake needs to remain intact so that protection options are not lost prior to your Department having the opportunity to evaluate them and making recommendations to government.

We strongly urge you and your counterpart at Natural Resources, Hon. Ernest Fage, to immediately assess how portions of Kimberly-Clark's operating plan that apply to lands within the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area can be temporarily put on hold, pending an evaluation of protection options for the site.

Please let us know if the Province will be taking any steps to this end.

Such an amendment to the operating plan would surely be feasible because the lands in question, while very significant to Ship Harbour Long Lake, represent a tiny fraction of Kimberly-Clark's lease and even less of their available timberlands when the company's 400,000 hectares of private land and supply from private woodlots are considered.

DEL's role in the operating plan approval process

While keeping the proposed Wilderness Area at Ship Harbour Long Lake intact in spite of the operating plans to date needs to be an immediate priority, it seems clear that broader policy changes are needed to prevent similar situations from occurring.

Given the Province's yet unfulfilled protected area commitments (e.g., 1992 Endangered Spaces Commitment and others - see www.publicland.ca and click on "Nova Scotia's Protected Area Commitments".), one might think that DEL would have a formal role in reviewing pending annual operating plans where the Crown lands in question could contribute to provincial wilderness objectives if protected and/or if they have been identified by DEL as carrying a program interest. Such a role would reduce the potential for land use conflicts between the respective mandates of DNR and DEL and would be consistent with the Province's stated shift to "integrated" management of Crown lands.

We would appreciate your opinion on this.

"Priority Areas"

As you know, DEL has prepared a preliminary inventory of protection-oriented values for all Crown lands as part of the Integrated Resource Management (IRM) planning process for Crown lands.

We understand that the Department has used this inventory to identify a number of "priority areas". In a June 12, 2000, letter to his counterpart at Natural Resources, former Deputy Minister of the Environment George Fox wrote "priority areas identified from Protected Areas/Parks inventories should be recognized and provision be made for their status to be maintained intact until more detailed evaluation and/or local-scale management is completed". His concern seems to mirror ours.

Mr. Fox's request is reasonable. The fact that the Department of Natural Resources approved widespread clearcutting and road building in this very significant wilderness while aware of the Deputy Minister's concern, and presumably while aware of the public interest in protecting Ship Harbour Long Lake, is disturbing. It demonstrates that some mechanism is urgently needed to keep potential protected area candidates intact, at least until a final decision is made regarding their status.

Any comments you could provide on the above topic or any other issues raised in this letter would be appreciated. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Kermit deGooyer
Wilderness Coordinator

CC:

• Hon. John Hamm, Premier
• all MLAs
• Peter Stoffer, MP for Sackville - Musqudoboit Valley - Eastern Shore
• Mayor Peter Kelly and HRM Council
• Interdepartmental IRM Advisory Committee
• Nova Scotia Public Lands Coalition
• Tourism Partnership Council

Enclosures:

Kimberly-Clark 2000 annual operating plan
Kimberly-Clark 2001 annual operating plan (approved to May 25, 2001)
summary of public support for the Proposed Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area

• Click here for more information on Ship Harbour Long Lake

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