Christopher Trider, Former Park Planner
“After a rather exhaustive, multi-year program to create the Parks and Protected Areas Plan, it [Owls Head] was included as site #694. And it is listed in that plan as a “provincial park.” “
Posted by Richard Bell
January 31, 2020, 5:08 PM
Eastern Shore Cooperator
Fraser published an explanation of his thoughts on the matter on the Save Little Harbour/Owls Head Facebook site on January 26. The Cooperator was able to get a short phone interview with Fraser on January 30 about the proposed land sale.
(more…)Posted by Richard Bell
January 15, 2020, 11:50 AM
Eastern Shore Cooperator
Gary Burrill, head of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party, told the Cooperator in a phone interview that the NDP intended to challenge the province’s decision to delist Owls Head Provincial Park and sell the land to a golf-course developer, particularly the use of secrecy.
Burrill also dismissed the province’s defense that the land had never actually been protected. “The public in general had a reasonable understanding that these were lands held by province in some kind of special category,” Burrilll said. “ Rankin decided to make a change, from whatever category the land was really in, a change he made without the kind of consultation, of discussion, of sharing information, that a decision of this magnitude always calls for.”
(more…)Posted by Richard Bell
January 14, 2020, 3:36 PM
Eastern Shore Cooperator
In a January 3 2020 email to the Cooperator, MLA Kevin Murphy said that he first heard about the golf courses about two years, and that he had had two phone calls from the golf course lobbyist, Michael Samson. He wrote that he had not talked about the project with any other lobbyists, nor had he discussed the project with anyone from the Owls Head community (within 50 miles of Owls Head.)
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Piping plover photo by Jason Dain
CBC Radio
Information Morning
January 10, 2020
The “globally rare” ecosystem on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore was quietly removed from the provincial government’s protected parks plan. Karen McKendry, Wilderness Outreach Coordinator at Ecology Action Centre, spoke with host Portia Clark. We also heard from Environment Minister Gordon Wilson.
Karen McKendry from the Ecology Action Centre understands that “people are concerned both about the process and the particular piece of Crown land.” Indeed, there has been strong public opposition to the delisting of the property, which was done in a secretive way. Citizens are also concerned that the ecological values of the site aren’t being protected by the provincial government.
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