Government says time needed for forestry strategy results

March 9, 2009

It will take time for a new forest management plan to see results, says a Natural Resources Department spokesman.

Assistant Deputy Minister for Natural Resources Paul Orser presented the plan at the Miramichi River Environmental Assessment Committee meeting Wednesday.

Orser said the province put together a task force that tried to ensure all interested parties saw an alternative consistent with their view of how the forest should be managed.

"The one that you liked and the one that I liked could be completely different."

The task force came up with thousands of possible alternatives and narrowed them down to eight they examined before settling on a final plan they will put into action in 2012.

The plan will see a reduction in the amount of wood available for cutting to keep the forests sustainable, but the province kept in mind companies may want to start new operations in the future, he said.

"That's where the rubber hits the road a little bit."

Orser said provincial forests have a lot of unused deer wintering areas set aside with the hope deer will return to them.

Those areas will be reduced by 40-60 per cent, but he said the province doesn't expect to see a drop in deep populations.

"They're tying up a lot of land base that could be used for timber use."

Orser said his department made their decisions based on the science available to them.

"It's not throwing darts. We do it with as much science as we can."

Although he did not attend the meeting, Roger Babin does have concerns about how the government manages New Brunswick's forests.

He worked in the forest for 16 years and said he was concerned about the shrinking number of deer yards.

"If you take out the deer yards and the deer want to come back where are they gonna go?"

Babin said when he started working in the woods in 1958 they didn't clear cut and would harvest trees according to the size they could pull out of the woods.

"As soon as the harvesters got in there it was like making a field in a week. "

When he went on a tour of a chipping operation with Natural Resources officials, he said they were chipping everything.

"Every tree, it didn't matter what size it was."

Under the new plan, the size of protected natural areas in the province will increase 4 per cent to about 6-8 per cent of the province's forests.

Orser said the size of conservation forest will drop to between 23 and 25 per cent from its current 30 per cent.

"That's not necessarily a popular decision by any means."

The plan will see an increase in the size of old forest, plantations and non- clear cut harvest. It will also see a drop in the wood supply with the allowable cut dropping from 5.34 million cubic metres to 4.42 million.

Orser said it will take about 30 years before new trees growing under the plan can be harvested.

"This is a long term strategy that really isn't influenced by what the industry is today."