Thursday, July 17, 2025 - The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) firmly objects to the Houston government's intention to allow high-production forestry within the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area. Doing so would jeopardize over a decade of community-led efforts to protect an area of outstanding conservation value and undermine the Province’s own commitments on protected areas.
Perfect for protection, yet still overlooked
The proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area contains the oldest documented forest in the Maritimes – a particularly important feature, given that less than one per cent of Nova Scotia’s forests are old-growth.
From black ash to the Blackburnian warbler, the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area is home to at least 17 species at risk and an additional 72 species of conservation concern. It contains key wilderness corridors and has been identified by the Province as core habitat for the endangered mainland moose – meaning this land has been deemed “essential for the long-term survival and recovery” of the species.
We are deeply troubled that the provincial government is advancing perpetual clearcutting instead of conservation in an area as ecologically significant as this.
High-production forestry
Within the proposed protected area, the government has slated 191.5 acres – an area larger than Point Pleasant Park – for high-production forestry.
High-production forestry uses a plantation model of clearcutting, replanting monocultures and spraying herbicides in short rotations, on an indefinite basis. This is unsuitable in a biodiverse area like the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area.
The Houston government’s direction is short-sighted, but the repercussions will be long-lasting: repeated clearcutting will severely fragment and degrade this crucial habitat, jeopardizing the many species that depend on it, including species that are already threatened or endangered.
A symptom of a larger issue
The intention to conduct high-production forestry within the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area is particularly alarming when we compare the Houston government’s fast-tracking of extractive industries to the stagnant progress on its legal commitments to protected areas.
As part of our national and international commitments, the provincial government is legally required to protect at least 20 per cent of Nova Scotia by 2030, as per the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act – legislation that the Houston government introduced and passed in 2021. To fulfill this mandate, Nova Scotia will need to protect over 330,000 hectares within the next five years. And yet, the provincial government hasn’t designated a single new protected area since Premier Houston’s first term.
Numerous areas of high ecological and social value have been nominated for protection, but until the government follows through, the sites are stuck in limbo, or worse, being chipped away at, one cut block at a time.
Are proposed protected areas being deliberately targeted?
The proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area (Halifax and Hants Counties), the proposed Chain Lakes Wilderness Area (Kings County) and the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (Annapolis County) are all biodiverse areas that local communities are championing for legal protection. The government may be largely ignoring these public lands, but the forestry industry isn't.
This isn’t just a problem – it’s a pattern.
Nova Scotia’s mandated protected areas commitments and public nominations to protect specific sites both predate the proposed harvest plans. But time and again, the government is prioritizing resource extraction over conservation on public land – even in proposed protected areas.
Is it any wonder that communities feel this is a deliberate tactic to undermine the protection of these areas?
Forestry isn’t the only ongoing threat to proposed protected areas. The provincial government approved the Caribou Lake quarry project in Lunenburg County, even though the Bridgewater Watershed Protection Alliance had already made an application to protect the land six months earlier. The watershed provides Bridgewater’s drinking water and is home to the last wild population of the endangered Atlantic Whitefish on Earth.
Failure to protect ecologically rich areas with strong public support not only jeopardizes precious ecosystems; it also erodes the public’s trust in the government’s commitment to people, nature and communities.
Public Land, broken promises
The proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area is part of the former Bowater-Mersey lands and is now public land (so-called Crown land) as a direct result of the 2012 community-led Buy Back the Mersey campaign. That movement spurred the provincial government to purchase the lands so government could put them “back in the hands of Nova Scotians.”
Yet, Nova Scotians still don’t seem to have any real say in what happens to public lands. Today, a mere 25 per cent of the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area is legally protected, despite years of local advocacy and overwhelming public support. Fifty organizations and businesses have advocated for its protection, including the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq and the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia.
This isn’t a question of the government not having the necessary information for good decision making; it’s the result of a government that clearly prioritizes reckless extraction over conservation. The Houston government might be satisfied with the status quo of “cut the best and protect what’s left,” but Nova Scotians are not. Rubber-stamping any of the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area for high-production forestry would betray years of dedicated community efforts to protect old-growth forests, species at risk and vital wildlife corridors.
Ignoring expertise
Forestry practices, including clearcutting, have long been a contentious issue in Nova Scotia.
In 2018, Professor William Lahey published An Independent Review of Forest Practices in Nova Scotia (widely known as The Lahey Report). Professor Lahey recommended a triad system for ecological forestry. His model divided public forests into three distinct zones or “legs:”
- Conservation: lands protected from forestry and other industrial use by designation as protected areas or through private conservation
- Ecological matrix: lands where low-impact forestry is allowed, but the overarching management objective is ecosystem health
- High-production forestry: land dedicated to intensive forestry operations on an indefinite basis (no more than 10 per cent of public lands)
Professor Lahey’s conclusion was unequivocal: “Protecting ecosystems and biodiversity should not be balanced against other objectives and values as if they were of equal weight or importance to those other objectives or values... Ecosystems and biodiversity are the foundation on which the other values, including the economic ones, ultimately depend.”
The actions and attitude of this government directly contradict his expert analysis, demonstrating a continued and deliberate disregard for the foundational role of ecosystem health.
A better way forward
Forestry is a crucial part of Nova Scotia’s history and rural economy, and ecological forestry has the potential to help shape a prosperous and sustainable future. But like any extractive industry, it’s not just how it takes place that’s important, but also where.
Protected areas enrich our communities and well-being by supporting important values and opportunities, including tourism, recreation, economic benefits and millions of dollars a year in ecosystem services. Instead of considering how to cut part of a proposed protected area, the government should be assessing how best to protect it.
The EAC is calling on the Houston government to:
- Immediately pause any harvesting plans or other resource extraction operations in proposed protected areas until they can be formally assessed and the government conducts meaningful public engagement
- Legally protect the proposed Ingram River Wilderness Area
- Meaningfully engage with individuals, groups and communities about new proposed protected areas to reach our 2030 target as promised in the Collaborative Protected Areas Strategy
We urge the Houston government to honour its legal commitments and protect these important pieces of our natural heritage before it’s too late. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.