[NatureNS] Crown land forests - suggestions for ground-truthing

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From: Donna Crossland <dcrossland@eastlink.ca>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 05:50:28 -0400
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YXZlIG11Y2ggY2hhbmNlIHRvIHRha2UgYSBzZXJpb3VzIGxvb2sgYXQgdGhhdA0
Thanks for the advice, Fred.  You're right, the follow-up documentation 
is essential (though perhaps less fun) and then after that there is the 
hurtle of having various decision-makers read and apply new 
facts/knowledge.  Everyone is so reliant on GIS layers these days to 
supply all the points rendered in decisions. I suppose we will have to 
suggest that they be added to certain GIS layers or it will be 
over-looked, conveniently or otherwise. In this era of rapid decline of 
many species coupled with poor management, the initiative of casting a 
net to the widest possible group(s) of naturalists to help catalogue 
species obs- location and abundance, etc, is of increasing importance.

I will forward your advice and Bev's new initiative to our group, Nature 
NS, as well.

Donna Crossland

On 2019-02-25 11:55 p.m., Frederick W. Schueler wrote:
> On 25-Feb.-19 10:10 p.m., Donna Crossland wrote:
>> This is a wonderful initiative.  I will finally hone some skills with 
>> iNaturalist, so it seems.  Bev and others will be good teachers.  
>> What better use of a naturalist's time than combing our public 
>> forests for nature's treasures? 
>
> * but you're going to have to formalize your results in documents, 
> sent in multiple copies to the attention of the ministries in charge, 
> because, at least in Ontario, the environment ministries and 
> environmental assessment rackets are well-blinkered experts in 
> ignoring the ordinary sources of knowledge about biodiversity: museum 
> collections, the peer reviewed and local natural history published 
> literature, and online provincial & national databases. They only heed 
> their own internal grey literature unless their noses are rubbed in 
> some more conventional info.  I bet they're almost as good at ignoring 
> eBird and iNat as they have been at ignoring the Ontario herp atlases.
>
> When we were reviewing http://www.dumpthisdump2.ca/ I published a 
> first record of a clover species for Ontario east of Windsor from the 
> proposed dump site in Trail & Landscape - the only local natural 
> history journal - and they missed both that and a paper about a SAR 
> we'd found, but they'd missed, at the site, that was peer-reviewed in 
> the Canadian Field-Naturalist.
>
> So call it a serial publication, "Ground-Truthing Nova Scotia Forests" 
> or something, and put out an issue for each of your trips, send pdf's 
> to ministry officials, and deposit a hard copy with Andrew Hebda at 
> the NS Museum, and maybe at the NB Museum so you'll have an out of 
> province repository.
>
> fred.
> ================================================
>
>> Song bird surveys and nest surveys will also be useful.  The harvest 
>> at Corbett Lake will surely NOT take place during nesting season, yet 
>> another assault on a forest with old growth and plenty of nest cavity 
>> trees.
>>
>> It is a sad reflection on the lack of good governance over the 
>> 'peoples' forests' (public Crown lands), with continued clearcutting, 
>> particularly on very sensitive, poor soils in the southwest.  And so 
>> it comes about that local folks feel the need to provide more 
>> oversight;  a neighbourhood watch, of sorts, over nature's bounty.
>>
>> Thanks to Bev.
>>
>> Donna Crossland
>>
>> On 2019-02-25 10:24 a.m., Bev Wigney wrote:
>>> Everyone,
>>>
>>> I know there has been very little discussion about harvests of Crown
>>> land forests here on NatureNS, but I'm putting out a somewhat related
>>> request.   Here in Annapolis Royal area, we've been organizing a
>>> ground-truthing group to make occasional forays to check out Crown
>>> land forests that have a fair likelihood of being good candidates for
>>> biodiversity - forests that would qualify as ecologically significant
>>> under the Lahey triad model.  This group has come about after a couple
>>> of previous forays to inspect forests that were slated for clearcuts
>>> or uniform shelterwood cuts (2-stage clearcutting).  In the case of
>>> the hardwood parcel at Corbett-Dalhousie Lake, we were astounded to
>>> find multi-age "old forest" climax hardwood trees -- Yellow Birch that
>>> were 8 feet in circumference, as well as many large Sugar Maple and
>>> Red Spruce.  The fate of that forest is still somewhat uncertain - it
>>> will be harvested in some way this spring, but we don't really know to
>>> what extent.  In any case, our forays have taught us that there is a
>>> need to know more about the Crown land forests in our region. It is
>>> not enough to wait for them to turn up on the Harvest Plan Map Viewer
>>> (HPMV) list of "parcels" awaiting approval for harvest.  With a scant
>>> 40-day comment period, that doesn't give our group much time to get
>>> out to ground-truth a forest, especially if it suddenly appears on the
>>> list in mid-winter -- as was the case with the Corbett-Dalhousie Lake
>>> forest - although 18 of us did go out to walk it on Boxing Day.
>>> Unfortuantely, we still have no true idea of the extent of its
>>> biodiversity and won't have much chance to take a serious look at that
>>> before the harvest equipment moves in -- but we have learned from this
>>> experience.  Waiting for forests to show up on the harvest lists is
>>> not the way to go.
>>>
>>> So, to cut to the chase -- what I am asking is that some on this group
>>> may know of ecologically significant Crown land forests that you have
>>> visited in the past.  Our Annapolis group is currently putting
>>> together a list of "good candidate" forests to begin surveying over
>>> the coming season - basically doing bioblitz-type visits to see what's
>>> there -- take geo-referenced photos, measure trees, identify trees
>>> species, look for signs of wildlife, breeding bird activity, native
>>> plants, etc...  We realize that many of the forests people may suggest
>>> might already be gone -- in fact, there's a pretty good chance that
>>> they've been clearcut as there has been an incredible amount of
>>> harvesting of Crown lands in Annapolis County.  If you haven't
>>> actually been out to a favourite forest in recent months, you might be
>>> in for a shock.  However, we'll consider any suggestions even if you
>>> are unsure of the state of the forest.  We have a couple of ways of
>>> checking to se