Nova Scotia government should buy these Bowater properties

The Nova Scotia government has recently announced it will spend $23.7 million buying lands from the Bowater mill in southwestern Nova Scotia in the next few months.  That amount of money should be able to purchase about 10,000 hectares of land, based on previous land purchases.

CPAWS welcomes this investment in purchasing lands for conservation, since Nova Scotia has very little public land and because several Bowater properties contain high conservation value, including old-growth forests, species-at-risk habitat, important wetlands, significant lakeshore frontage, and sites adjacent to existing protected areas.

In Province House yesterday, Premier Darrell Dexter reaffirmed that the priority for the land purchases is conservation and, in particular, to help the province achieve its target of protecting 12% of Nova Scotia’s landmass by 2015.

In case you’re not a regular Hansard reader (like many of us environmentalists are), this is what the Premier said yesterday at Province House when asked about the land purchases in Question Period.

Premier Dexter: “Mr. Spearker, this is a purchase of land.  We are purchasing from them [Bowater] some 25,000 acres of land.  The reason why we’re doing that is to fulfill our responsibility to reach the 12 per cent protected goal…”.

Bowater is one of the largest landowners in Nova Scotia.  They own about 235,000 hectares of land, or about 5% of the province.

CPAWS has spent a lot of time analyzing the Bowater land holdings over the past few years and we know which properties are of the highest conservation value.  Properties listed below are the ones that the Nova Scotia government should purchase as part of the agreement with the company.

~Chris Miller

Fisher Lake
Size: 2,330 hectares
Location: Annapolis County
Conservation Significance:
• Large intact forest
• Significant shoreline frontage on Fisher Lake
• Concentration of old forest (white pine/red spruce)
• Concentration of rich hardwood forest
• High quality Acadian forest
• Landscape representation (contains all major ecosystem types in region)
• Lakeshore islands
• Wilderness recreation (canoeing, hiking)

Roseway and Tobeatic Lakes
Size: 3,126 hectares
Location: Shelburne and Queens Co.
Conservation Significance:
• Large intact forest
• Significant lakeshore habitat
• Concentration of old forest (red spruce, white pine)
• Concentration of rare plants (coastal plain flora)
• Endangered mainland moose habitat
• Significant wetland complexes
• Adjacent existing protected area
• Wilderness recreation (canoeing)

Jordan River
Size: 1,794 hectares
Location: Shelburne Co.
Conservation Significance:
• Extensive river frontage on the Jordan (>20km)
• Large intact forest
• Concentration of rare plants (coastal plain flora)
• Concentration of old forest (red spruce, white pine, red oak)
• Diverse forest ecoystems
• High quality Acadian forest
• Endangered mainland moose habitat
• Significant wetland complexes
• Adjacent existing protected area
• Wilderness recreation (canoeing)

Lake Torment
Size: 1,606 hectares
Location: Annapolis Co.
Conservation Significance:
• Concentration of old forest (black spruce, white pine)
• Large wetland complex
• High quality Acadian forest
• Adjacent Kejimkujik National Park

Alma Lake
Size: 1435 hectares
Location: Annapolis Co.
Conservation Significance:
• Landscape connectivity
• Concenration of old forest (red spruce/hemlock/white pine & hardwoods)
• Large intact forests
• Significant river frontage on the Medway
• Wilderness recreation (hiking, canoeing)

Long Lake
Size: 303 hectares
Location: Lunenburg Co.
Conservation Significance:
• Concentration of old forest (red spruce, white pine, hardwoods)
• High quality Acadian forest
• Adjacent existing nature reserve

Big Indian Lake
Size: 481 hectares
Location: Halifax Co.
Conservation Significance:
• Concentration of old forest (red spruce, white pine, hemlock)
• High quality Acadian forest
• Important lakeshore habitat
• Wilderness recreation (hiking)