Back Road Bog

Protecting Canada’s Carbon Sinks

A short but beautiful video and article from WWF-Canada explains the value of carbon sinks, and protecting sites like Owls Head, Nova Scotia.

World Wildlife Federation – Canada

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In the face of widespread wildlife loss and climate change, WWF-Canada’s new nation-wide assessment maps gaps in essential wildlife habitat protection and opportunities to protect areas that benefit biodiversity while slowing climate change.

A national habitat crisis

Just as we need housing, wildlife need somewhere to live. Half of Canada’s monitored species are in decline, by a staggering 83 per cent, and even wildlife protected under Canada’s Species at Risk Act are failing to recover. Wildlife simply can’t survive with increasingly degraded or destroyed habitats. They need to find food, mate, migrate and raise their young. Climate change only makes matters worse.

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Fauna of Owls Head Provincial Park

Photos by Susan Vickery

Owls Head Provincial Park is part of Halifax’s Green Network Plan. The plan has identified an “essential ecological corridor” between Owls Head Provincial Park and Tangier Grand Lake Wilderness Area. Also known as a green corridor or wildlife corridor, these connecting spaces are essential for our wildlife and biodiversity.

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The Marine Side: By Kristina Boerder

Marine biologist Dr. Kristina Boerder explains that Eastern Shore marine ecosystems and salt marshes are providing “important ecosystem services” that benefit humans and nature.

  • Protection from coastal erosion
  • Providing important habitat for a multitude of species
  • Benefiting local fisheries
  • Acting as important carbon sinks (absorbing & storing carbon dioxide)
  • Providing breeding and nursery habitat for terrestrial, near-shore, and migratory birds
  • Providing “shelter, foraging, and breeding habitat for marine invertebrates, such as shrimp and crabs, and small fish”
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Owls Head - Vision Air

Ecology Action Centre Statement

Owls Head is a coastal headland on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia/Mi’kmaqi. A portion of the headland (268 hectares/ 662 acres) is provincial Crown Land and has been managed as a provincial park since the 1970s. Though Owls Head Provincial Park was never legally designated as a protected area, it has been proposed for designation in the Nova Scotia’s 2013 Parks and Protected Areas Plan (site #694). 
 
Because of investigative reporting and freedom of information requests, we all learned of the backdoor deal to sell Owls Head Provincial Park to a private developer, for conversion into golf courses. The secret actions of the Department of Lands and Forestry staff, past and current Ministers, and Cabinet to dispose of a rare ecosystem home to a number of endangered species without public consultation are deplorable. 

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