NS to support woodlot owners, reduce clearcutting

May 11, 2011 – A $5-million investment will
help Nova Scotia achieve its target of reducing clearcutting to 50% of the
total harvest over the next five years. The funding, announced in the 2011–2012
budget, is a healthy start to the plan, giving woodlot owners the tools and
resources they need to help reach this goal.

"Through this plan, and as part of the upcoming natural resources
strategy, we want to help stimulate woodlot owners' interest and participation
in forestry," says Natural Resources Minister Charlie Parker. "As
recommended in the Woodbridge report, this funding will help provide industry
the wood supply it requires and ease the transition toward our new clearcutting
reduction policy."

Of the $5-million investment, $1 million will provide training and outreach for
woodlot owners, $2.2 million will enhance the Private Land Silviculture program
to provide professional and technical services to small, private woodlot
owners, and $1.8 million will go towards tree harvest tracking, monitoring, and
compliance.

The province's plan is supported by a commissioned economic impact analysis by
internationally recognized forestry industry specialists Woodbridge Associates.
The report, released on May 10, describes significant global and local
challenges as well as opportunities that are part of Nova Scotia's forestry
economy. For an overview of the report, see Nova Scotia: The Woodbridge Report
| Foresttalk.com.

The report recommends the province take measures to help ease the industry's
transition toward Nova Scotia's clearcutting reduction target. The report also
makes it clear that small, private woodlot owners play a key role in supplying
wood fibre for the forest industry.

There are 31,000 private woodlot owners in Nova Scotia, but the amount of
timber they have supplied to industry since 1997 has declined significantly.
The timber in small, private woodlots makes up two-thirds of the province's
wood supply.

Reducing clearcutting is one of six policy areas the province announced in
December in advance of the natural resources strategy.

The report by Woodbridge Associates is available on the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources
website at www.gov.ns.ca/natr/strategy2010/healthy-forests.asp.