Spring Newsletter 2019
Thank you to all our new members who responded to our membership drive last month. We’ll be sending out your certificates very shortly. If you’re not yet a member, you can join anytime on our website. Remember, the more members we have the more influential we can be in promoting ecological forestry for Nova Scotia.
Firewood
We are still taking orders for our sustainably harvested 8-foot and processed firewood. If you're interested in purchasing wood from us this year get your order in soon for delivery in June. We actively deliver cut/split to Lunenburg, Queens and Annapolis Counties and 8 foot wood as far as HRM (minimum order applies). Contact us today to get your order in!
Upcoming Events
You might be wondering if you missed this year’s AGM. But don’t worry, our AGM is just scheduled to be little later this year in order to combine the meeting with our Four Mile Stillwater Trail opening. The AGM is coming up soon, on Saturday, June 8 from 9:00 – 1:00 at the Maitland Bridge Hall. The meeting will be followed by the trail opening event including a guided hike and ribbon cutting ceremony from 1:30 - 3:00. Carpooling will be available from the Maitland Bridge Hall to Four Mile Stillwater for those participants interested in joining the hike.
Our speaker at this year’s AGM will be acclaimed author Jamie Simpson sharing the Mi’kmaq Forestry Initiative’s vision for sustainable forest management. Our negotiations committee will be sharing an update on our negotiations for a long-term agreement with Lands and Forestry, and our General Manager, Mary Jane Rodger will be providing her annual report and an early look at our operating plan for 2020. Pre-registration is recommended, please contact our outreach intern, Freya Clarke to register.
We’ve had a busy spring and don’t yet have dates for our summer events, but we will be hosting the usual events including a wild foods workshop and operations field tour as well as incorporating a couple new ones, including yoga in the woods and an introduction to backcountry camping.
Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust
Have you ever wondered about the future of your woodlot? Want to see your legacy of ecological forest management be sustained in perpetuity?
We’ve been quietly working away at building our exciting new charity, the Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust. There are still quite a few steps for us to take before formally launching the organization, but you can look forward to learning more soon as we prepare to launch our website. If you think you are interested in pursuing a working forest easement for your property, and maybe be a part of our launch next year, we’re looking for several pilot properties to help launch the initiative. If you would like to help contribute to this project, either through ideas or financially, please contact us directly. We think this is a huge opportunity to build resilient economies and bring a mature canopy back to our rural communities.
Forestry Operations
We’re now wrapping up a series of harvests we started last December with Lewis Logging. This harvest covered 4 different areas in the East Branch and Nine Mile Woods regions of our license area. The cuts were mostly shelterwood harvests with one variable retention seed tree harvest in an area in need more extensive restoration work. Our plan for the shelterwood harvests is to gather data through ongoing monitoring and promote a mix of ages and species. This means that we’ll likely return to harvest more wood in 10-15 years, and again in 25-30 years, removing 30% each time. We worked with Westfor Forest Management for marketing and logistics, and were able to fill a few special orders that came in from small sawmills and roadside firewood vendors
We have a goal of harvesting approximately 8500 tonnes this year, and are well on our way there, harvesting 3600 tonnes to date. All of the remaining cuts are partial harvests and as usual for the MCFC, reflective of ecological forestry practices. Our harvest prescriptions aim to promote growth of long-lived, shade tolerant Acadian forest species and natural regeneration.
Later this May, we’re looking forward to having Versatile Forest Services Ltd. planting approximately 45,000 trees on our license area. We are planting a mix of red and white pine, red and black spruce and red oak, depending on the site conditions within each harvest area.
Shelterwood harvest nearby Highway 8 in the Nine Mile Woods area.
Summer Projects
We’re excited to be welcoming two summer students this year. Returning for her third summer with the MCFC is Freya Clarke, a UNB environmental resource management student. Freya will be joined by Jennika Hunsinger, a Masters of Forest Conservation student from the University of Toronto. Both will be taking on the finishing touches for the Four Mile Stillwater Trail, planning our much anticipated summer events and gathering data on species at risk and biodiversity in the MCFC license area. Other ongoing projects include monitoring for Hemlock Woolly Adelgid in our hemlock stands and catching up on some overdue silviculture assessments.