Spraying woodlands would increase the amount of flammable material, compounding already high wildfire risks during a drought that has greatly diminished rivers and water supplies needed to extinguish fires.

A Cape Breton environmental group is demanding that the provincial environment minister stop issuing forest spray permits for mainland Nova Scotia.

Neal Livingston, a woodlot owner in Inverness County and co-chairman of the Margaree Environmental Association, says Environment Minister Tim Halman’s continued aerial spray approvals for the mainland are inexplicable more than 30 years after similar spraying ended in Cape Breton.

“With more than 30 years of no-spray experience on over a million acres that Port Hawkesbury Paper operates on, the MEA (Margaree Environmental Association) demands that this year the minister stop this nonsense, adopt Cape Breton’s no-spray practices, and not issue spray permits for mainland Nova Scotia,” Livingston said.

The Margaree Association wrote a letter to Halman dated July 24 with its demand but Livingston said the group has not received a response from the minister or the department.

Applications to spray 1,448 hectares

“The department has received four applications covering 1,447.56 hectares and the department is currently reviewing them,” Cindy Porter, communications adviser with the provincial Environment and Climate Change Department, said in an emailed response to questions from The Chronicle Herald.

“Health Canada approves what pesticides are safe for use,” Porter said. “If someone has concerns about the pesticides they approve for use across the country, they need to contact Health Canada. Our role is to make sure the companies that are spraying comply with strict terms and conditions when spraying.

Livingston and his group say that’s not good enough.

“The point we’ve been trying to make is, how can you live in two different worlds, where the largest and only pulp and paper company in Nova Scotia, controlling through leases huge forest territories, like a million acres, doesn’t spray and carries on successful commercial forestry,” Livingston said.

“Then you have these others, that we call the worst players in the industry, spraying. Why would the minister of environment issue permits for spraying when he clearly knows there are alternatives?

💢 NOVA SCOTIA MINISTER REFUSES HELP FROM SKILLED AND EXPERIENCED FIREFIGHTERS😡🌲 2023

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💢 https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/article/its-a-dead-forest-northern-bush-pilot

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💢 https://shore-215.blogspot.com/search?q=glyphosate

💢 https://shore-215.blogspot.com/2022/10/national-school-lunch-testing-for.html

💢 https://shore-215.blogspot.com/2022/07/80-of-people-piss-toxic-weed-killer.html

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