PRACTICES AND PERSPECTIVES

While our Western Canadian mills source fibre from external suppliers and partners, our currently closed Northern Pulp mill was an integrated operation, with more than 250,000 ha of private forest lands and licensed Crown lands under management, and an SFI forest-management certification.

The mill also bought fibre from private woodlot owners and provided them with some forest management services; and a nearby company-owned seedling nursery is used for both reforestation purposes and Christmas tree production.

Forest practices in Nova Scotia are changing with a focus on protecting and enhancing ecosystems and biodiversity as identified in the provincially commissioned Lahey Report. Paper Excellence supports implementing the Lahey Report in its entirety and is revising its forestry practices.

Since the shutdown of the mill in January 2020 (see page •), and in an effort to sustain some degree of viability for the provincial forest industry, we have continued to make forest blocks on the lands we manage available for contracted harvesting for use in sawmills. Forest management activities overall, however, are at 20-25 per cent of their levels when the mill was operating.

The impacts on contractors and the broader industry supply chain have been significant, although buffered so far by remarkably high prices for lumber, beginning spring 2020 and extending into 2021; and by temporary demand for chips for biomass generation, pending completion of additional inter-provincial electricity transmission capacity.  

Would you like to learn more about our recent performance and our long-term vision? Visit the Sustainability Report page on our website.
There you can read our full 2019-2020 Sustainability Report, the four-page summary report, and our Practices and Perspective on-the-ground stories.