1.6M acres of forest gone in Nova Scotia

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 25 (UPI) -- A Canadian environmental group said Thursday the province of Nova Scotia has lost 12 percent of its forests in 17 years, or about 1.6 million acres.

The report issued by Global Forest Watch Canada said the rate of clear-cutting in Nova Scotia is about twice as high as in other heavily forested parts of Northern Ontario and inland British Columbia, The Chronicle-Herald newspaper in Halifax said.

The group said satellite imagery of the province from 1990 and 2007 show forests used to be older and more contiguous but are now fragmented and younger.

Global's national manager, Chris Miller, told the newspaper better resource planning was needed by the provincial government.

"Forestry needs to be sustainable over the long term so we're not in this perpetual boom-and-bust cycle where rural communities become dependent on resources, which then get used up, and then the rural economies suffer as a result," he said.