The controversy surrounding the proposed gas and diesel power plant near Centre Village in the Tantramar region has taken another troubling turn. Reports that the Atlantic Wildlife Institute says nests of a protected bird are present at the proposed plant site should concern every New Brunswicker who cares about wildlife, conservation and the integrity of our environmental assessment system.
The bird at the centre of this issue is the Pileated Woodpecker.
This is important because the Pileated Woodpecker is not simply another bird that can be brushed aside when it becomes inconvenient for development. Its nesting cavities receive specific protection under Canada's Migratory Birds Regulations, 2022. Environment and Climate Change Canada lists the Pileated Woodpecker among 18 Schedule 1 species whose nests receive year-round protection. For a Pileated Woodpecker nest, the designated period before an unoccupied nest can normally be considered abandoned is 36 months.
The reason for this protection is also important.
Pileated Woodpeckers create large cavities in trees, and those cavities can later provide valuable nesting and shelter opportunities for other wildlife. The federal government describes the Pileated Woodpecker as a keystone species for cavity-nesting communities because its cavities can be used by other migratory birds that cannot excavate such spaces themselves.
That means protecting one nesting tree can be about much more than protecting one woodpecker.
The Questions New Brunswickers Deserve to Have Answered
What troubles me most about this situation is the history surrounding the selection of the Centre Village site.
When comparing Centre Village with the alternative location near the Scoudouc Industrial Park, N.B. Power reportedly identified evidence of Pileated Woodpecker nests at Scoudouc as one of the factors that could delay development there. The Centre Village location, meanwhile, was reported as having no evidence of Pileated Woodpecker activity during the assessment used to compare the locations.
The Atlantic Wildlife Institute later challenged that conclusion.
Barry Rothfuss, executive director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, said the organization had received photographs and GPS coordinates indicating Pileated Woodpecker activity at the Centre Village site. According to reporting on the issue, photographs showed what the institute identified as a nesting cavity and feeding holes, and Rothfuss said two provincial professionals had reviewed photographs suggesting Pileated Woodpecker activity.
If that evidence is confirmed, I believe it raises a serious question:
How complete and reliable was the original wildlife assessment of this property?
That question deserves an answer before additional habitat is disturbed.
Environmental Protection Cannot Depend on Which Site Is More Convenient
This is where I have a major problem with the situation.
If the presence of protected Pileated Woodpecker nests was significant enough to be considered when evaluating the Scoudouc location, then evidence of those same protected nests at Centre Village must be treated with the same seriousness.
Environmental regulations cannot become obstacles when they interfere with the location we want and safeguards when they help justify the location we prefer.
Conservation does not work that way.
The law should apply consistently, and environmental assessments should be based on what is actually living on the land—not simply what happened to be documented during a limited survey.
Wildlife does not appear according to our construction schedules.
This Is Bigger Than One Woodpecker
The proposed plant received provincial environmental approval in August 2026, subject to 45 conditions. It is planned as a 500-megawatt gas/diesel generating facility near Centre Village.
But this debate has never been only about the footprint of a generating station.
The Centre Village property is a largely forested landscape in the broader Chignecto Isthmus region. Conservation advocates have raised concerns about habitat fragmentation and the ecological importance of the area as a connection between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
When we remove forest for roads, buildings, transmission infrastructure and other development, we are not simply cutting down trees.
We are changing habitat.
We are changing movement corridors.
We are changing nesting areas.
We are changing feeding grounds.
And those individual changes accumulate.
As a nature and wildlife photographer, I spend a great deal of time in the woods of New Brunswick. When you spend enough time quietly watching wildlife, you begin to understand something that is very easy to forget from an office or boardroom: a forest is not empty land waiting for us to find a use for it.
It is already being used.
Birds nest there. Mammals travel through it. Insects reproduce there. Plants compete and spread. Dead and dying trees become habitat. Wetlands store and move water. Predators hunt. Prey hides. Generations of wildlife live and die within landscapes that may look like nothing more than trees on a map.
A Nesting Tree Is More Than a Tree
The Pileated Woodpecker demonstrates this perfectly.
Federal guidance explains that Pileated Woodpecker cavities are valuable to other cavity-nesting species and that these nests are protected year-round. If an unoccupied Pileated Woodpecker nesting cavity is to be destroyed under the normal abandonment process, notification must be submitted and the nest must remain unoccupied for the required 36-month period. There are separate permitting provisions that can apply in certain circumstances, but they require evidence and regulatory review.
That is why properly determining whether these cavities are actually nesting cavities matters.
I am not suggesting that every hole in every tree automatically proves the presence of a protected nest. That determination should be made properly, scientifically and transparently.
But credible evidence of potential nesting cavities should trigger more investigation, not less.
Stop First. Investigate Second. Develop Last.
My position as a nature and wildlife advocate is straightforward.
If credible evidence exists that protected Pileated Woodpecker nesting cavities are present within areas that could be disturbed by this project, then activity capable of damaging those potential nests should not proceed until qualified wildlife professionals and the appropriate regulators have completed a thorough investigation.
Document the trees.
Map the cavities.
Determine which are feeding, roosting or nesting cavities.
Release the findings publicly.
Explain what surveys were conducted previously, when they were conducted, how they were conducted and why these cavities were not identified earlier if they were present.
Then explain exactly how federal protection requirements will be respected.
That should not be considered anti-development.
That is responsible development.
We Cannot Keep Protecting Nature After We Destroy It
New Brunswick has extraordinary forests, wetlands, rivers and wildlife. Yet too often environmental protection seems to become a conversation only after a project has already advanced so far that changing direction becomes politically or financially difficult.
That approach needs to change.
Conservation must happen before the bulldozers arrive.
Environmental assessment must mean more than completing paperwork. It must be capable of changing a project when new evidence demonstrates that our original assumptions may have been wrong.
Otherwise, what exactly are we assessing?
The Pileated Woodpecker cannot attend a public consultation.
A moose cannot submit comments to an environmental impact assessment.
A wetland cannot stand before government and explain why it matters.
That responsibility belongs to us.
We are the ones capable of understanding what is being lost, and therefore we are the ones responsible for deciding whether that loss is acceptable.
I believe New Brunswick can meet its energy needs without treating forests and wildlife habitat as disposable.
And if protected nests have now been identified on land proposed for a billion-dollar energy project, the answer should not be to find the fastest way around them.
The answer should be to stop, investigate and respect the protections we created for exactly this reason.
Because environmental laws only mean something when we are willing to follow them when doing so is inconvenient.
And conservation only means something when we protect wildlife before it disappears.
Keith Dennis Brewer
Nature and Wildlife Advocate
New Brunswick, Canada
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