"Only remnants of this carbon-rich forest in the Maritimes remain after centuries of clear-cutting. Thousands of family forest owners have a stake in its survival. The question is: can they earn revenue from its protection rather than its destruction?"
"SUSSEX, N.B. — Melissa Labrador leans against an ancient red oak tree reaching onto the Wildcat River in southern Nova Scotia. It’s unusually dry due to a mid-August drought, but she can still smell the fresh herbal scent of wild blueberries, wintergreen and sun-warmed pine needles.
The red oak is her ancestor tree, a grandparent of the forest that holds old knowledge of her people, Mi’kmaq of the Gokqwes or Wildcat community, who have lived here for millennia.
“I like to think he was just barely growing when my people were going to the ocean, along this river in the birch bark canoes, picking medicines along the way,” Labrador says."
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