Letter: Firm up the plan

Re: “Climate action, prosperity promised,” March 10 story. I read with great interest your report on Premier Iain Rankin’s first throne speech. There are many exciting promises with respect to climate change and the environment. 

But whatever happened to his intention to complete the designation of the remaining properties still languishing on the “Our Parks and Protected Areas: A Plan for Nova Scotia” of 2013? He promised to complete the plan when he ran for leadership of his party.

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Parks and Protected Areas: Protecting the Public Interest

Here’s another gem from the government website on Our Parks and Protected Areas Plan:

Our parks and protected areas contribute to our economy by:

  • anchoring our nature tourism industry
  • supporting the outdoor recreation industry
  • helping us brand Nova Scotia as a clean, green place in which to live, work, and do business
  • contributing to local and regional economies
  • employing people (directly and indirectly), especially in rural areas

So now, on April 1, we have to go to Court and fight the government, Premier Rankin’s government, to protect the public interest in the significant, large, coastal protected area referred to as Owls Head Provincial Park.

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Group urges Rankin to revisit Owls Head property sale decision

“We are hoping that once Iain Rankin is sworn in as premier, he will reverse his decision on the sale of Owls Head Provincial Park,” said Sydnee McKay, who now lives in Gaetz Brook, 40 kilometres west of Little Harbour, where she grew up next to Owls Head on the Eastern Shore.

“His (Rankin’s) motto is listen, learn and lead so we are hoping he will listen to the thousands of Nova Scotians and the scientific data about the ecological values of the park and put it back on the Parks and Protected Areas Plan with a full designation as a provincial park,” said McKay, whose 89-year-old mother still lives near Owls Head, along with her brothers, aunts and uncles.

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Beach Meadow

JIM VIBERT: Mother Nature’s on the run in Nova Scotia

Jim Vibert
The Chronicle Herald
October 2, 2020

Full Article Here >

As galling as the government’s bluster and bluff about protecting nature can be, more galling yet is the fact that much of the heavy lifting was done before they arrived in office. All they had to do was take credit for the work of previous governments, but when it comes to protecting nature they can’t, or won’t, even do that.

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Save Owls Head Provincial Park: Joint Letter

Office of the Premier
7th Floor, One Government Place
1700 Granville Street
Halifax, NS
B3J 1X5

March 10, 2020

Dear Premier Stephen McNeil:

Owls Head is an ecologically significant area along the Eastern Shore that is deserving of legal protection. It contains a number of rare ecosystem types, as well as important habitat for migratory birds and species-at-risk. It is a key headland within the “100 wild islands” ecosystem.

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Gilberts Land on Owls Head

We Fight On

We are fighting to save Owls Head Provincial Park.

We are fighting on many fronts and must remain vigilant.

The Court case—thank you Eastern Shore Forest Watch and N.S. Biologist Bob Bancroft—opens another front. It gives us oxygen, like Katie Porter’s report, the public meeting at Ship Harbour, the work of Richard Bell in the Eastern Shore Cooperator, the hundreds of people who have joined this group and share its posts, the work of Stan Frantz on the website, Sydnee Lynn’s determination to stop the sale and destruction of Owls Head, the work of the Conservation Groups: CPAWS and the EAC. The comments, the posts, the public engagement, and dialogue are all keeping us moving forward together, an army of common purpose.

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