Nova Scotia providing $1 million fund for building and maintaining private woodlot roads

The province of Nova Scotia is making $1 million available so private woodlot owners, including those in Queens County and the South Shore, can access more of their forest land.

The provincial fund is helping woodlot owners build and maintain woodlot roads.

“Woodlot owners want to improve access to their woodlands in order to manage, harvest, and protect them,” said Charlie Parker, Minister of Natural Resources. “This initiative advances the province’s natural resources strategy by engaging and helping small, private landowners to improve the management of their forested lands.”

Private forest landowners can apply to receive assistance from the fund to build new woodlot access roads or maintain and upgrade substandard roads on their woodland. Improved access will help landowners carry out silviculture practices and other aspects of woodland management that meet provincial goals of ecosystem management, as well as harvest more forest products from their lands, and make forest fire protection easier.

Eligibility

Eligible woodlot owners must:

• have land holdings of 20 to 20,000 hectares
• own, occupy, or have lease control of the woodlot
• must be planning to engage in forest management over the next 5 years
• not be a producer of softwood lumber or other wood products covered under the Canada United States Softwood Lumber Agreement of 2006

Forest management includes producing wood, silviculture activities to sustainably manage the wood fibre on their woodlot, or developing the woodlot to produce maple products and Christmas trees.

“This new fund will be a significant benefit to the forest industry, and woodlot owners in particular,” said Kari Easthouse program forester with the Nova Scotia Landowners and Forest Fibre Producers Association. “Road infrastructure is often essential to proper forest management of woodlots. This strategic investment will allow improvements on private woodlots.”

Details on funding amounts, eligibility requirements and applications and application fees are available on the Department of Natural Resources website at www.gov.ns.ca/natr/woodlot .