CPAWS calls on province to designate Chignecto Game Sanctuary as a protected wilderness area
06 Nov 08
Halifax - The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) is calling on the Nova Scotia government to designate the public lands of the Chignecto Game Sanctuary as a protected wilderness area.
"The Province needs to step up and protect the Chignecto Game Sanctuary as a protected wilderness area before it's too late", says Chris Miller, National Manager of Wilderness Conservation, based in Halifax. "Until that's done, the area will remain vulnerable to clearcutting, open-pit mining, and development".
The Chignecto Game Sanctuary has come under threat recently from seismic exploration, which will involve cutting three seismic lines through the heart of the game sanctuary to search for natural gas.
In Nova Scotia, game sanctuaries don't protect habitat, they only curtail certain types of hunting activities. By contrast, protected wilderness areas protect habitat and prevent forest harvesting, mining, road building, and other types of development.
For the past three years, CPAWS has been examining the ecological significance of the Chignecto area and has undertaken significant fieldwork in the game sanctuary.
The area is significant for its large interior forests, ecosystem diversity, old growth forests, riparian habitat, and the presence of species-at-risk. It is home to one of the last strongholds of the endangered mainland moose.
"The wilderness of the Chignecto Game Sanctuary is nationally-significant", says Miller. "It contains some of the best remaining examples of intact Acadian forest ecosystems in eastern North America".
"Our last, best places must be protected", adds Miller.
Protecting the game sanctuary as a wilderness area will also be another step forward in meeting Nova Scotia's goal of representing all of the ecological diversity of the province in a system of protected areas, and help move the province toward its target of 12% protection by the year 2015. Currently, only about 8% of the province is legally-protected.
In 2004, the province proposed delisting several game sanctuaries and was inundated with public submissions requesting that the protection of the game sanctuaries be strengthened, not weakened.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society is Canada's leading grassroots non-government organization for wilderness conservation, with 20,000 members and 13 offices across the country.
High quality digital images of Chignecto Game Sanctuary available
Contact information:
Chris Miller, Ph.D.
National Manager, Wilderness Conservation and Climate Change
(w) 446-4155
cmiller@cpaws.org