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www.nsforestmatters.ca/
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… … 20% Protection by 2030/ (THIS PAGE)
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– Chain Lake Wilderness Area (proposed)
– Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area (proposed)
Ingram River Wilderness Area (proposed)
– Stories Maps Tell
– Open letter to Nova Scotia Premier Houston requesting cessation of logging in areas that are prime candidates for protection 17Oct2024
– Bill-C73
Menu for NS Gov Protected Areas Page
In 2021, our provincial government committed NS to 20% protection by 2030, it’s currently just under 14%.
The Department of Natural Resources and Renewables and the Department of Environment and Climate Change are mandated to work together to protect 20% of Nova Scotia by 2030. The deadline for meeting the interim target of 15% — March 2026 — is even more demanding.
A major portion of the lands to be added to reach 20% will necessarily have to come from forested Crown lands – view Triad Land Distribution (page on this website) for some rough estimates of how much Crown working forest land could be involved.
Links
– What is getting in the way of protecting 20% of our lands and waters?
Post by Nina Newington on Healthy Forest Coalition website, Apr 10, 2025. “Shortly after coming to power in 2021, Tim Houston’s government tabled the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act (EGCCRA). To their credit, it incorporated one of the election pledges the PCs ran on: to protect 20% of Nova Scotia’s lands and waters by 2030. In October 2023 the Canada-Nova Scotia Nature Agreement introduced an interim target of protecting 15% by 2026. It also gave Nova Scotia $28.5 million to help it get moving on meeting these protection goals…Back when EGCCRA was passed, at the end of 2021, 13% of our lands and waters had been protected. As of March 31st 2023, the grand total was 13.2%. At the end of March 2024, the total was 13.6%. At the end of 2024, the grand total so far protected stood at 13.7%. The next report is due in July. Tracked in the annual reports required by EGCCRA, reports titled Urgent Times, Urgent Action, this progress is, to put it mildly, underwhelming…”
– On the Path to 2030: A Report Card on Progress to protect land and ocean across Canada
CPAWS, Mar 23, 2025. 123 pages, comprehensive. “The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) has reviewed the progress made from 2022 through 2024 by federal, provincial, and territorial governments towards Canada’s commitment to effectively protect at least 30% of land, freshwater, and ocean by 2030. This report presents our key findings, assigning grades to federal, provincial, and territorial governments based on their contributions – or lack there of – to area-based conservation efforts. It highlights major achievements and shortcomings, and provides critical insights to help guide more effective conservation actions on the pathway to 2030.”
– Environment and Climate Change: Protected Areas
– Collaborative Protected Areas Strategy: An Action Plan for Achieving 20 Per cent
NS Gov. Dec 2023, PDF, 20 pages.
– Canada–Nova Scotia Nature Agreement “The Canada–Nova Scotia Nature Agreement, signed by both parties on October 10, 2023, sets out target outcomes and early commitments in six key areas:
– Increase the amount of protected and conserved areas in the province by 82,500 ha, by March 2026, which will result in protection for close to 15% of the province’s land mass. [Comment by SOOF, Feb 23, 2025 That means moving approx 72,000 hectares into protection by next year.]
– Creating a pathway to the provincial goal of 20% by 2030, and the federal goal of 30% by 2030, by supporting and accelerating processes that enhance land use planning
– Supporting the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia in conservation leadership and care of nature
– Species at Risk protection and recovery
– Foundational knowledge and information sharing
– Support Canada’s domestic and international biodiversity commitments including through the implementation of the GBF.
Canada and Nova Scotia will work together to deliver on the priorities and commitments in this agreement. The Government of Canada will invest a total of $28.5 million to implement the Agreement and support nature protection and conservation in the province. Both parties will work collaboratively with the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia to implement the Agreement in a way that recognizes the unique rights and relationship the Mi’kmaq have to the land. Canada–Nova Scotia Nature Agreement (Full agreement) UPDATE MAR 21, 2025: Parks Canada braces for $450 million in cuts and lapsed funding, By Cameron Fenton for National Observer, Mar 21, 2025: “The cuts listed on Parks Canada’s website also leave more than $300 million unaccounted for. According to department plans, the difference will come from expiring spending programs like the Enhanced Nature Legacy Fund. Created in 2021, this $2.5 billion fund was tied to the government’s promise to protect 30 per cent of Canada’s lands and waters by 2030. The Parks Canada funding supports the goal of establishing new national parks and marine protected areas; it’s tied to a five-year commitment that runs out at the end of 2026. “I am worried that cuts to Parks Canada would make it harder than it already is to live up to the 30-by-30 promise,” said Joe Foy, protected areas campaigner with the Wilderness Committee. “Failure to do so is going to result in the loss of some beautiful places, and also will accelerate the extinction crisis.”
– Wilderness Areas: A Brief History (NSECC website).
– Interactive Maps of Parks and Protected Areas (NSECC website).
– John LeDuc Protected areas in NS (YouTube Video)
Posted Apr 18, 2024. A presentation sponsored by the Blomidon Field Naturalists on the history of the protected areas process in Nova Scotia
– The two largest privately funded land protection organizations functioning in Nova Scotia are the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
– Community Easements Act
“In the spring of 2012, Government passed the Community Easements Act, which provides governments, non-profit groups, and the Mi’kmaq with a new tool for protecting land use and land access. In 2013, the government approved regulations under the Community Easements Act. A community easement is a legal mechanism to maintain community or cultural interests in land, including such things as community access to special places, agricultural or forestry land use, view planes, wetlands, and archaeological sites. The land owner would receive financial compensation from those seeking the community easement for agreeing to place the restriction on the land. To place a community easement on land, a group must be designated under the Act. A community easement is a permanent interest in land that allows a group, the Mikmaq or government to retain the land’s traditional use, even if the land is sold.”
– Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust
“The Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust (NSWWT) was founded to fill a void in land conservation in Nova Scotia. We aim to uphold the long-term stewardship of working woodlands in Nova Scotia, through ecological forestry and conservation…The NSWWT works through the Nova Scotia Community Easements Act to place working woodlot easements on private woodlands with exceptional stewardship legacies. Woodlot owners continue to be the stewards and owners of their lands, but must abide by the conditions set in their easement, which are typically tied to a forest management plan developed by one of our partner organizations.” An initiative of the Medway Community Forest Co-op. In the process of being set up as a registered charity.
– Commercial Benefits of Nova Scotia’s Protected Areas
Submitted to: Nova Scotia Environment Submitted by: Gardner Pinfold Consultants Inc. October 2017
106 page document
– Biodiversity survey method for detecting species of conservation concern in Nova Scotia protected wilderness areas and nature reserves
R.P. Cameron, Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science (2019) Volume 50, Part 1, pp. 165-180. A very important paper, from the discussion:
Protected Areas Ability to Capture Species of Conservation Concern
Protected areas not designed to capture species of conservation concern may not be adequate for protecting vulnerable species. Only about 8% of the vascular plant species of conservation concern known to occur in the province, and about 7% of non-vascular flora, were captured in this study. Birds fared better with about 19% of species captured. Three of the four reptiles of conservation concern were found during the surveys and one of thirteen mammals. It should be noted that the protected areas assessed were not designed to protect specifically species of conservation concern, but rather to protect representative ecosystems. Other protected areas in the network are designed for species at risk (Cameron & Williams 2011) such as the 23,000 ha of nature reserves versus the 496,000 ha of wilderness area primarily focused on ecosystem representation (Nova Scotia Department of Environment 2018). The results of this study support the need to have protected areas specifically for species of conservation concern because protected areas designed to capture representative ecosystems may not capture the rare species of conservation concern. There are also likely species of concern that occur in the study areas but were not captured by the survey.
Nature Nova Scotia: make Room for Nature
Nature NS is the Federation of Nova Scotia Naturallist Societies.
“Sign onto our letter asking government to designate all remaining pending protected areas in the now out-of-date Parks and Protected Areas Plan and get to work on a robust new plan for achieving 20% by 2030.” View letter Bob Bancroft to Ministers Rushton and Halman, Dec 15, 2024
Open letter to Nova Scotia Premier Houston requesting cessation of logging in areas that are prime candidates for protection 17Oct2024
Post Oct 20, 2024 “The letter from The Save our Old Forest Association (SOOF) with 17 co-sponsors requests cessation of logging in areas that are prime candidates for protection by 2030.”