Where Our Forest Is Being Sprayed This Summer

Check the 2021 map for spraying near you, and use our letter-writing tool to tell officials you want this unnecessary and old-fashioned practice to stop

The map showing where New Brunswick forests will be sprayed with herbicides during summer 2021 is now available.

Forestry companies spray large swaths of clearcuts with products containing glyphosate — a chemical linked to cancer and a slew of other health problems — beginning in August and continued through September.

Our team is poring over the map to help New Brunswickers identify the major spraying hotspots this summer. Stay tuned to this page for updates with maps showing hotspots across the province and within our watersheds.

In June, the Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship held a week of hearings on glyphosate use in New Brunswick.

Our Executive Director, Lois Corbett, was among the experts, conservation groups, scientists, and citizens groups who spoke out against spraying during the hearing and called for a better approach to forest management in New Brunswick based around ecological forestry.

Below, learn more about what was covered at the hearings, why spraying in the Crown forest should stop, and what you can do to help end this unnecessary and old-fashioned practice.

Read our summary of the June 2021 glyphosate hearings, including links to presentations and written submissions made to the committee examining its use.

Click Here

Read a summary of our Executive Director's presentation to the standing committee on June 22, where she called or a new Crown Lands and Forests Act.

Click Here

Did you miss the hearings? Head to our Youtube Playlist of presentations made to the standing committee examining glyphosate use in our woods.

Click Here

Speak Out! Send Your #StopSpraying Letter

Your letter will be sent to your MLA, Premier Higgs, Minister Holland, and the members of the Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship

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As another forest spraying season begins in New Brunswick, I want to state my opposition to the spraying of glyphosate-based herbicides. I just don't believe we need them. As you know, they are designed to kill hardwoods and plants in our forest, which we need to provide both food and habitat for wildlife. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicides used in New Brunswick Crown forest silviculture, was labeled a "probable human carcinogen" by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015. As your constituent, I ask that you support a ban on spraying glyphosates and other herbicides in Crown forestry in New Brunswick. I understand that the Standing Committee on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability is reviewing evidence and presentations from its June hearings on glyphosate use and will make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly. Replacing the use of herbicides in Crown forest with thinning crews of people, as Quebec has done since 2001, would ensure more jobs from our forest resource. The Auditor General of New Brunswick attributed the annual deficit from its Crown forestry operations ($7-10 million for each of the years, 2009-2015) to the costly silviculture program in her 2015 report. A lot of New Brunswickers clearly agree with me. Over 35,000 of them signed petitions tabled in the N.B. Legislature and a growing alliance of over 30 groups are working to ban the practice. The Acadian forest has been listed as one of six endangered forests in North America. New Brunswick makes up a large portion of what remains of the Acadian forest. Ensuring that the Acadian forest is properly managed here in New Brunswick is key to maintaining this unique forest region. Crown forest management must consider first and foremost adequate habitat for wildlife, protection for streams and rivers, climate change impacts and forest diversity in terms of age and species. New Brunswickers have repeatedly expressed a desire for changes in the way our Crown forest is managed, including scaling back on allowable clear cut size and eliminating aerial spraying. The people of the province want to save animal populations decimated by overcutting, stop the damage to our rivers and lakes, and diversify our forest-based economy. You’ll remember that six years ago the provincial auditor recommended that the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development reduce the amount of Crown land harvested by clearcut, to bring practices in line with the government’s 2012 forest management plan. “Clearcut(ting) is running consistently around 80 per cent, whereas in the area of selective or partial cut, there is a decline from 20 per cent to roughly 10 per cent in more recent years,” Kim Adair-MacPherson told MLAs and reporters upon releasing the 2015 report. Back then, she noted that the department had ignored numerous studies and recommendations calling for a reduction of clearcutting on Crown land. Her report said that selective and partial cutting methods are recognized as best management practices because they also serve to protect waterways, wildlife habitat, and preserve a healthy range of plant and animal life in the woods. In her February 2021 update, the auditor general said she was disappointed the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development had to implement the key recommendations she made in 2015. “The Department continues to disregard the need to reduce clear-cut harvest on Crown land to align with the Province’s forest management strategy,” she wrote. It is time for the government to end herbicide spraying and modernize New Brunswick’s outdated approach to forest management in a way that is fair for private woodlot owners, respects First Nation’s rights, and meets the needs of all citizens who use and love our forests and the natural resources and wildlife within. Sincerely,

What's the problem with spraying herbicides containing glyphosate?

Forestry companies spray clearcut areas with herbicides to kill hardwoods and vegetation that compete with the spruce, fir and pine they grow in plantations.

The Conservation Council has long advocated that the province stop the old-fashioned, citizen-funded practice of spraying the forest. Quebec banned the spraying of its public forest more than 15 years ago. Glyphosate, the main active ingredient in most herbicides used in Crown forest operations in New Brunswick, was listed as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in 2015.

Conservationists, biologists and hunters are worried that spraying vegetation is wiping out the food and habitats of our forest wildlife. The concern among New Brunswickers is so widespread more than 35,000 people have signed a petition to end the old-fashioned practice, organized by Stop Spraying New Brunswick with support from the Conservation Council. Since 2017, more than 5,000 New Brunswickers have used our letter writing tool to call on their MLA and the provincial government to ban the spraying our forest with herbicides.

Let’s take the herbicides out of the woods and put more people to work in 21st century forestry and silviculture practices that conserve and restore a healthy, resilient and diverse forest!

Help us continue our work for ecological forestry in New Brunswick

Share this article with your friends and family and invite them to join you in calling for an end to spraying in N.B.!