conservation

RICHARD BELL: Groups Unite to Oppose Owls Head Park Sale

Eastern Shore Cooperator
Posted on March 12, 2020
By Richard Bell

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In a show of province-wide opposition to the government’s controversial decision to sell Owls Head Provincial Park, 23 groups submitted a joint letter to Premier McNeil on Tuesday, March 10 calling on the government to do three things:

  1. “Stop the sale of publicly-owned lands at Owls Head
  2. Protect Owls Head as a legally-designated protected area
  3. Fully implement the Nova Scotia Parks and Protected Areas Plan”
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By Save Owls Head, ago

Wetlands: Why We Need Them

“Owls Head is characterized by repeating bedrock ridges that support a coastal barrens ecosystem. A globally rare heathland plant community occurs on the crests of the ridges and biodiverse bog wetlands predominate in the depressions between the ridges. This landscape pattern on the coast is only otherwise known from Blue Rocks, Lunenburg County, amidst residential developments with no conservation protection.”

– Biologists Caitlin Porter & Dr. Jeremy Lundholm
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By Save Owls Head, ago

Letter from Concerned Scientists

Caitlin Porter, MSc, Research Associate
Jeremy Lundholm, PhD, Professor & Department Chair
Ecology of Plants in Communities Lab
Biology Department
Saint Mary’s University

To the Honourable Labi Kousoulis,

We are biologists and environmental scientists writing to express our concern with the potential development of the proposed Owls Head Provincial Park Reserve.

Over the past 15 years, the Ecology of Plants in Communities lab at Saint Mary’s University has worked with collaborating NGO and NS provincial government partners to describe and classify heathland ecosystems across Nova Scotia. We have included the proposed Owls Head Provincial Park Reserve in our field surveys. Our years of data reveal that Owls Head is ecologically unique and of importance to biodiversity conservation.

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By Save Owls Head, ago