Jim Vibert
The Chronicle Herald
January 6, 2020
Nova Scotia’s Parks and Protected Areas (PAPA) plan grew out of extensive public consultations, but last spring the government secretly removed one of the proposed protected areas from the list and hid its handiwork from public view.
At the risk of understatement, that’s not a good look for any government. Nor is the province’s attempt, after the fact, to diminish the ecological value of the land in question — known as Owls Head — while chest thumping about its record of protecting nature and biodiversity. Conservationists rate that record as mediocre at best and inadequate by current national and international standards.
Owls Head on the Eastern Shore abuts Little Harbour and isn’t far from Clam Harbour. There are 661 acres of coastal Crown land there, listed as a provincial park on the government’s website, but the province claims that designation was the result of an administrative error.
