NewPage establishes buffer to protect rare lichen discovered in Cape Breton.

NewPage Port Hawkesbury has established buffer zones in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to protect a large quantity of rare and endangered lichen.

Tom Neily, a botanist with the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute based in Kempt, Queens County, Nova Scotia, found the largest known population of boreal felt lichen in the world in 2008, near St. Peter's, with other pockets of the lichen found in Richmond and Cape Breton counties.

“It takes a lot of looking to find it and in Richmond County we found some healthy populations, but it’s still rare,” Neily said in a telephone interview. “We’re talking very small numbers.”

Trees usually host only one or two of the lichens, however a “super tree” with more than 50 individual lichens on it was among the seven sites identified, he said.

Andrea Doucette, forest sustainability supervisor for NewPage, is proud of the company’s role in conserving the endangered lichen.

“We make every effort to mitigate negative impacts to species at risk and their habitat,” she said.

NewPage has also protected an active goshawk nest found in the area, with a 200-metre no-harvest zone.

Read more about the rare lichen:

Rare, endangered lichens found on ‘super tree’ in Richmond County