Major land purchase big step in right direction
03 Feb 10
HALIFAX – CPAWS welcomes today’s announcement by the Nova Scotia government that it has acquired about 26,000 hectares of lands owned by the forest company J.D. Irving Ltd. This includes large tracts of land in southwestern Nova Scotia as well as Cumberland County.
“If these lands weren’t acquired, they probably would have been snapped up by developers and land speculators”, says Chris Miller, a senior conservation manager with CPAWS based in Nova Scotia. “Some truly exceptional wilderness areas of national significance have been saved by this land purchase”.
The Nova Scotia government has set aside $80million this year to acquire private land holdings from forest companies. According to the government, the J.D. Irving transaction involved a total of $40million. A further agreement is in place with NewPage Port Hawkesbury Ltd. for a total of $5million.
“The provincial government deserves a lot of credit for this major land purchase,” says Miller. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to acquire large tracts of wilderness from the forest companies to ensure that they remain forever wild and forever available for the public to enjoy”.
The Nova Scotia government has committed to protecting half of the land that was purchased as protected areas, which will help the province achieve its legislative goal of protecting at least 12% of the provincial landmass by the year 2015. The remaining lands will be available for continued resource use.
Top on the list for lands that should be protected as wilderness areas and nature reserves are long stretches of wilderness coastline along the Bay of Fundy, intact forests in the Tusket River watershed with nationally-endangered coastal plain plants, lands occurring in unrepresented landscapes with no protected areas, areas where existing protected areas could be expanded, and lands on the Isthmus of Chignecto near the NS-NB border important for the movement of wildlife.
CPAWS is Canada’s leading grassroots voice for wilderness conservation. We are a non-governmental organization working to protect at least half of Canada’s natural environment and over the past 45 years have played a lead role in securing at least two thirds of Canada’s protected areas.
For more information, contact:
Chris Miller, Ph.D.
National Manager,
Wilderness Conservation and Climate Change
Canadian Park and Wilderness Society
(902)446-4155