MTRI - Forest - Kempt Provincial Park
The Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute (MTRI) is a non-profit co-operative with a mandate to advance collaborative research, monitoring, and management that promotes sustainable use of natural resources in southwestern Nova Scotia.
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What is the KPPR?
In 2007, the province of Nova Scotia made the decision to purchase 30 parcels of land from the Bowater Mersey Paper Company in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Among these thirty parcels are 284 hectares located directly behind MTRI in Kempt, Queens County. The province has yet to determine the designation or management plan for this parcel of land, but recognize the potential for MTRI to steward this land. MTRI has started gathering on-the-ground natural resource data and compiling geographic information system (GIS) data to assist with the parcel's eventual educational and ecological management goals. For the purposes of this project the land will be referred to as the Kempt Provincial Park Reserve (KPPR).
Project objectives
- To create a basic forest inventory for the KPPR.
- To compile digital geographic data for the KPPR.
- To map forest and special features of the KPPR.
Methods
- Forest inventory plots were randomly located using ArcGIS software.
- Forest inventories were completed using a prism sweep.
- Digital geographic data were collected from sources such as the Nova Scotia Departement of Natural Resources and the Nova Scotia Geomatics and placed on an ArcGIS map.
- Forests and special features were saved as waypoints on GPS units then downloaded to the ArcGIS map.
Results
- Over 100 forest inventory plots were completed inside the KPPR boundaries.
- At each plot, the size and number of trees within a prism sweep, site and slope description, disturbance evidence, stand age, course woody debris, regeneration, shrubs, herbs, ferns, mosses and club mosses were recorded.
- A map has been created, displaying all relevant data to assist with future research and management decisions.
- Northern flying squirrels, a Short-tailed weasel, a Red-backed vole and different kinds of mice have been trapped in 2010 during the Flying squirrel study at that site.
Years of data
- Ongoing project since 2008
Partners
- Cégep de sherbrooke
- Cégep de La Pocatière
- YWCA
- Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources
- Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute