News from Groups

MEDIA RELEASE

Petitcodiac, N.B

Stop Spraying NB's grades for this year are: An F for the governing NB Liberal party for their failure to follow through on election promises; an F for the PCs for the fact that this party has no interest in addressing this issue; and a B- for the NB Green Party for questions asked in Committee and during Legislative sessions, and tabling handwritten petitions, but again, not tabling a motion. (Image of report card and photo of event will follow in a separate email with attached images)

The 2024/2025 sessions of the 61st Legislature ended before the Government of New Brunswick completed the implementation of the recommendations by the Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, which were published almost four years ago, in November 2021. GNB has also not informed the public about what the promised investigation into alternatives entails. In short, there has been no clarity on any of the 2024 election promises.

This early spring Stop Spraying NB called on the Minister of Environment, Gilles Lepage, to not issue forest herbicide spray licenses while the provincial government investigates alternatives to forest herbicide spraying. Instead, it was business as usual when the summer arrived and forest herbicide spraying continues. Natural Resources Minister John Herron was also adamant about not halting forest herbicide spraying this year.

In November 2023 the new Crown Forest Strategy was released by the then PC Government. This plan promises an increase in the percentage of Crown land to be converted into plantations from 16% to 33%. There is no clarity whether this increase will be accompanied by more herbicide spraying to manage these added plantations. GNB is spending more money this year on plantation establishment: $11M compared to $7.9M in 2024. No comment has been given on this strategy by the NB Liberals. The NB Green Party has been vocal about the many concerns around this new strategy.

SSNB Chair Caroline Lubbe-D'Arcy. "Even though the recommendations by the Standing Committee were just a small step in the right direction, we have already been told that the Department of Environment has not followed through on increasing the buffer zones to the recommended number of meters from homes and waterways. NB Power was low-hanging fruit and has stopped using glyphosate and reduced the number of hectares sprayed, but continues to spray other, similar acting herbicides on their major rights-of-way".

Dr. Matthew Betts concluded in his research that intense forest management in New Brunswick, is driving habitat loss for the 54 most common forest bird species in our forests. The new Forest Strategy included 8.5% buffer strips as conservation land in the stated 30% conservation. This is completely unacceptable. Narrow, mandatory buffer strips are not conservation areas. All these buffer strips attempt is to not cause too much siltation of the waterways adjacent to them. We need to see meaningful improvements that are needed for wildlife and bird habitat.

It is very troubling that the NB Government is accelerating intensive forest management practices in the years to come. SSNB asks of this government and all political parties in the province to consider the precautionary principle considering increased concerns around long-term effects of glyphosate, and to ban the harmful practice of herbicide spraying on our publicly owned Crown forests, which is half of the forest base in New Brunswick. Habitat loss is associated with substantial population declines of forest species.

ONLINE MAP OF 2025 Forest Spray Licenses: (public forests only)

This online map allows the public and municipal governments to quickly check whether forest herbicide spray licenses have been issued near their community and in their drinking watersheds. A volunteer for Stop Spraying New Brunswick set up this mapping application to be easy to use and automatically update with the raw spray data openly available from the Department of Natural Resources website. SSNB also has a Historical Forest Spray Map (1969-2024) based on GNB data

The online map includes roads, communities, protected watersheds, and deer wintering areas. The spray areas are colour coded so that the public can easily see each public forest area that was sprayed between 2000 and 2024 (in red), between 1981-2000 (in orange), and 1969-1979 (in pale yellow).

CONTACT:

Dr. Caroline Lubbe-D’Arcy
Chair, Stop Spraying NB
Email: [email protected]
Cell: 506-292-7503

Facebook public group: Stop Spraying in New Brunswick (18,000 members)
Twitter: @stopsprayingnb
Website: www.stopsprayingnb.ca