Cloe Logan
Canada’s National Observer
January 19, 2022
Full article here
In November, a beloved piece of coastal parkland in Atlantic Canada was saved from development, but environmentalists cautioned the fight wouldn’t be over until the land was officially protected. Now, they’re one step closer to that goal.
… For Christopher Trider, a member of Save Owls Head Provincial Park and a former provincial park planner, Rushton’s comments are good news.
“You know, there’s still a row to hoe, for sure. But this is really, really a step in the right direction,” he said.
The 285-hectare provincial park reserve was delisted by then-Lands and Forestry Minister Iain Rankin in 2019, who said there wasn’t enough biodiversity in the park to merit protective status. However, scientists in government and beyond said the opposite — calling the parkland “globally rare.”
… For now, Trider and others are waiting to see if Owls Head will become a provincial park or a protected area and how it fits into the province’s goal of conserving at least 20 per cent of the total land and water mass in the province by 2030.
“The whole process, the secret delisting and the offer to sell, the subsequent division that was fostered in the community and elsewhere by the proponents — it was just a terrible, terrible thing,” he said. “It was a real blow to many, many people’s … faith in the government … I think we should be very pleased that they have arrived at this point.”
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