Chris’s Corner – Save Owls Head

Category: Chris’s Corner

Chris’s Corner is a blog category dedicated to Christopher Trider’s thoughts on the ecology, ethics, and engagement concerning Owls Head Provincial Park.

Background: Christopher Trider worked for the Department of Natural Resources (now known as Lands and Forestry) for 21 years. One of Christopher Trider’s roles during his time with the provincial government was “the assessment of coastal properties for acquisition by the province.” (Michael Gorman, CBC). Christopher has first-hand knowledge: “I know how hard [these coastal properties] are to find, I know how hard they are to come by. I know how important these properties are for the long-term public good.”

With Chris’s permission, these posts have been reposted from the Facebook group Save Little Harbour/Owls Head.

June 30, 2020July 3, 2020

Beyond Owls Head Park

June 30, 2020

It bears repeating at this point that the struggle to stop the secret sale and protect Owls Head Provincial Park has never been just about Owls Head.

It has never been about preventing local economic development , and never about just preventing golf courses.

It is about protecting all our Provincial Parks and Wilderness Areas.

Minister Rankin and Premier McNeil have both stated publicly that every property in the Parks and Protected Areas Plan is ” under review.” Any property on that list can be removed and offered for sale without public knowledge or oversight, and without following established policies and procedures.

After the years of public engagement, stewardship, and commitments to protect our lands, for the government to act in this manner is morally and ethically unacceptable.

Stop the sale. Save Owls Head.

Christopher Trider

June 28, 2020June 30, 2020

The Whole is Greater

There’s a saying, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” which refers to the synergy that is created when the pieces all complete each other and contribute to a greater experience.

Owls Head was not appraised by the secret real estate deal guys as the integral part of the whole Eastern Shore Islands that it represents.
The public lands of Owls Head, 700 acres of pristine coastal heathlands, represent an invaluable connection between the Wild Islands project and the Eastern Shore Seaside Park System. They are a classic, representative landscape of parallel quartzite ridges, bogs and coastal spruce forests with a globally rare plant community.

May 27, 2020May 29, 2020

Hold Them Close

The formal transfer of the so-called “surplus” federal land at Owls Head to Environment and Climate Change Canada is good news for all of us that are trying to prevent the secret deal to sell the lands of Owls Head Provincial Park.

The same developer, to whom Minister Rankin and Company offered to sell our parklands, was also secretly maneuvering to acquire these lands by using the Federal MP and the Provincial Cabinet.

March 15, 2020March 25, 2020

How Do We Put a Value on Owls Head?

How do we put a value on Owls Head Provincial Park?

There have been few valuations for rare plants, let alone globally rare plant communities. For example, a rare Shenzhen Nongke orchid is valued at $202,000 per plant. We would need to do a series of transects and plots at Owls Head Provincial Park to get an honest number of the rare plants and communities to put into the economic calculus of a ” balanced ” view.

“A mature tree can have an appraised value of between $1,000 and $10,000.” So let’s do a survey of all the ancient coastal white spruce stands at Owls head and put an average value of $2000 on the individual specimens, but let’s be fair and only value the trees that are 75-100+ years old, the ones impossible to replace in a lifetime.

March 2, 2020June 22, 2020

Biodiversity & Owls Head

Corema Dwarf Heath on Bedrock Ridge, Caitlin Porter

“When scientists speak of the variety of organisms (and their genes) in an ecosystem, they refer to it as biodiversity. […] The opposite of biodiversity is referred to as monoculture, or the growing of one species of organism, such as a lawn, a wheat field or cornfield.” Golf courses also constitute a monoculture.

Continue reading “Biodiversity & Owls Head”

February 27, 2020May 29, 2020

Deep Roots

The stories of climate change and sea-level rise are written in the rocky shores and beaches of Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Coast. The eroded headlands and glacial till have created the migrating sand platforms, our beaches, and marshes. Drowned bays, coves, and inlets, cobble storm berms, rock ridges, and cliffs all stretch along the length of the Eastern and South Shores.

Owls Head has long been recognized as a “representative” coastal landscape, first as a candidate National Park component, then as a survivor of the community battles to emerge as a Provincial Natural Environment Park component of the Eastern Shore Seaside Park System.