Nova Scotia’s provincial parks aren’t as protected as you may think | 24CA News

Nadine Hunt’s love for nature began early. As a baby, she and her mom would typically go to the seashore close to their residence in Mabou, Cape Breton.

“She taught me to respect the beach. If there was any litter or garbage around, we were picking it up,” she stated.

Hunt stated the world’s distinctive pure setting and peaceable ambiance are what makes it so particular.

“It’s not just the beautiful beach and the warm water that we experience here in the summertime, but also the fact that you can always find a spot to be by yourself,” she stated.

Cabot Cape Breton, a golf resort developer with three different programs in Inverness County, has stated it intends to attempt for a second time to acquire permission from the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables to construct a golf course on a part of West Mabou Beach Provincial Park. An identical proposal from the corporate in 2018 was rejected after the division’s environmental evaluation of the world.

Hunt has fought for many years to guard West Mabou Beach. When it was formally designated as a provincial park in 2001, she thought the world would lastly be protected.

But the extent of safety provincial parks have in Nova Scotia is not as easy as it could appear. 

The Parks Act

The Provincial Parks Act offers the minister of pure sources and renewables numerous powers, together with to “dispose of flora or fauna in a provincial park” and “grant a license, privilege or concession with respect to a provincial park” for as much as 5 years.

Cabinet has much more sweeping powers, together with to lower the scale of a park, terminate the standing of a park, grant leases for park land and to control using lands in a provincial park.

Environmental lawyer Jamie Simpson stated the act offers these people “a high degree of discretion” over what occurs to a provincial park. Cabinet or the minister can determine, with out public session or an act of the legislature, to permit any type of improvement that they see match.

Simpson stated though the introduction to the act says provincial parks are “dedicated in perpetuity for the benefit of present and future generations of Nova Scotians,” the federal government is free to interpret that in any approach it likes.

“Government could make an argument that that would include golf,” stated Simpson.

In order to get this sort of permission from cupboard or the minister, any individual or firm can method them with a proposal that they will determine to simply accept.

“The way that’s usually done is through the back door, you know, quiet conversations,” stated Dale Smith, a former worker within the Natural Resources and Renewables Department. 

Culture of supporting trade

Now retired, Smith was the supervisor of parks planning from 1978 to 1998 after which the director of protected areas till 2001. He’s spent a lot of his retirement selling environmental safety and conservation.

Smith stated in his expertise, a tradition of supporting forestry and different trade is “baked in” to the division.

“They’re really just not supportive of protection. Officially they are, but when they’re dragged along toward protecting an area or supporting it, you can see the heel marks,” stated Smith. 

That’s why he’d prefer to see administration of provincial parks transferred to the Department of Environment and Climate Change.

“[The Department of Natural Resources and Renewables] have forestry, energy, mines, and you know that’s perfectly legitimate stuff, but its orientation and purpose is totally different and in many ways contradictory and in conflict with the other,” stated Smith.

Another method to solidify the safety of provincial parks may very well be to amend the Provincial Parks Act to match up with different conservation areas, stated Simpson.

The laws governing wilderness areas is much extra restrictive than the Provincial Parks Act. Mining, quarrying and power improvement are particularly prohibited and eradicating an space’s designation requires an act of legislature. 

Simpson stated that the federal government might additionally add an modification to stop personal builders from excluding the general public from accessing a provincial park.

For Hunt, change cannot come quickly sufficient.

“We can’t keep going through this. This is hard on communities, it’s hard on people and it’s a waste of time for the government,” stated Hunt.

“What is ‘legally protected,’ right? There has to be some teeth to that.”

A spokesperson for Natural Resources and Renewables stated in an electronic mail that the “broad scope” of the division lets it “integrate all the values of our natural resources and informs better decision making.”

The spokesperson added that many personal companies function in provincial parks, like meals distributors and out of doors gear rental services.

“Other proposals come forward from time to time and the department always remains open to hearing ideas that may provide public benefit.”

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