June 14, 2022: We’re happy to announce that Owls Head is officially Nova Scotia’s newest provincial park!
We commend the people of Nova Scotia for their unwavering dedication and extraordinary efforts to save this public park.
Together, we’ve prevented the province from setting a terrible precedent of selling public parklands to private interests, but we still have work to do. The Eastern Shore Seaside Park System remains incomplete and there are still approximately 125 provincial parks, nature reserves, and wilderness areas across Nova Scotia that still aren’t legally protected. In addition to legally protecting each of these sites with an Order in Council, new measures are needed to ensure that no site with proposed or pending protection can ever be secretly delisted.
In the meantime, we hope that the remarkable success of the Save Owls Head movement will inspire you to keep fighting for positive change. We have an opportunity to build on this success and establish a new era for protected areas in Nova Scotia—one in which no pending park can be secretly sold off to private interests; an era in which all of the 100+ pending ‘protected areas’ will soon receive legal protection, as we work our way towards protecting at least 20% of Nova Scotia by 2030.
And as we’ve learned, people power really can change things.
Please enjoy this video from our friends at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (Nova Scotia Chapter)
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Court Update
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed the Owls Head appeal as moot in December 2022, given that the park was already protected at that point. “Despite the court’s contention that the 'issue arising in this case has not recurred and may never recur,' a very similar situation could arise from a proposal by Cabot Cape Breton," as Saltwire pointed out.
“I doubt if the ministers who made this announcement today are doing it with the intention that some future government might undo what they have done,” Plourde said of Monday’s announcement to designate 9,300 hectares Read more…
Despite the court’s contention that the “issue arising in this case has not recurred and may never recur,” a very similar situation could arise from a proposal by Cabot Cape Breton, owners of two successful Read more…
“The recent contention around golf course proposals for West Mabou and Owls Head surely must have Nova Scotians, locally in the Mabou area and across the province, wondering if our provincial park properties will ever Read more…
Neal Livingston, co-chair of the Margaree Environmental Association, sees a parallel between the fight to preserve Owls Head Provincial Park on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore and efforts to safeguard Cape Breton’s West Mabou Beach Provincial Read more…
The reaction was swift and almost universal across the province: “OMG, not again!” The dust has barely settled on the Owls Head fiasco and another American billionaire golf course developer has the temerity to take Read more…
“This species being the only one found in the Maritime provinces would easily fit in as a species at risk in the Nova Scotia context. So in that way it’s quite special. You could say Read more…