Conservation and Travel Journalist
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, Virginia, was featured in both the New York Times bestseller The Omnivores Dilemma and the documentary Food Inc. for his farm’s unique and holistic management, servicing more than 5,000 families, 50 restaurants, 10 retail outlets and a farmer’s market with organic beef, pork, poultry and forestry products. What’s more, he’s published 12 books.
The question has been asked – where is the organic industry of Atlantic Canada headed? – in particular by stakeholders pining for a formal plan. At Charlottetown’s ACORN (Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network) Conference in late November of 2018, it was put more directly.
Wilderness areas have been a reality in Nova Scotia since December 3rd, 1998, when the Wilderness Areas Protection Act came into force and simultaneously designated the first 31. These areas, unlike parks which can be partially dedicated to recreation, are strictly for conservation on the ecosystem scale, protecting entire landscapes and the vital processes therein.
Continue reading “The 13 Per Cent: NGOs Call For Fulfillment of Nova Scotian Protected Areas”
The Eastern hemlock is a force of nature in Nova Scotia by virtue of its age. Foresters past and present have ignored it in favour of more valuable spruce, pine and myriad hardwoods, allowing hemlocks to become the oldest member of our enduring forests, accounting for almost all of our remaining old growth.
Continue reading “Hemlocks in Crisis: Agencies Mobilize in Defence of Iconic Tree”
Where, do you think, is the most intact forest on Earth? Your mind might take you to the solid green canopy of the Amazon Rainforest or perhaps to the Congo, places being undervalued into oblivion but which are still, mercifully, vast, possessing of remoteness it seems can only be found in a good book these days. The world’s most intact forest, however, is much closer to home. In fact you’ve probably walked through it, blissfully unaware of its global significance.
One of Nova Scotia’s oldest standing forests can be found down a logging road in Lunenburg County, on a steep slope tucked behind a wall of young spruce. What’s more, we almost cut it down.
Continue reading “Nova Scotian Old Growth on the Chopping Block”