New wilderness protection report shows progress in Nova Scotia

HALIFAX – A new report released by Global Forest Watch Canada shows that Nova Scotia is in the middle of the Canadian pack in the amount of land dedicated toward wilderness protection. Currently, 8.6% of the provincial landmass is considered legally-protected. The national average for Canada is 8.5%.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) is pleased with the progress being made in Nova Scotia towards protecting wilderness. The Nova Scotia government has committed to protecting 12% of the provincial landmass by 2015, and recently unveiled a proposal to achieve that target.

“The government is making good progress toward the goal of protecting twelve percent of the provincial landmass”, says Chris Miller, National Conservation Biologist with CPAWS, based in Halifax. “Nova Scotia is emerging as a national leader in its recent efforts to establish new protected areas”.

The steps Nova Scotia is taking are particularly significant in a national context, since the province lacks large tracts of northern frontier wilderness and has much less public land than most other jurisdictions in Canada. Despite these challenges, Nova Scotia is in the middle of the pack in the amount of land protected, and poised to overtake several other provinces soon. By comparison, neighbouring jurisdictions of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are 3.1% and 2.6% protected, respectively.

“CPAWS-NS is looking forward to our continued work with the Nova Scotia government to ensure that the conservation targets move forward on a well-founded scientific basis”, says Prof. Martin Willison of the Nova Scotia Chapter of CPAWS. “At the current level of 8.6% protection, we still have a long way to go, but the Nova Scotia government is taking encouraging steps toward greater protection”.

At a national-level, CPAWS is pleased that Canada has made progress in the past decade in increasing the amount of protected wilderness, but concerned that we continue to lag behind the global average of nearly 13% of land permanently protected from industrial development, according to a report released today by Global Forest Watch Canada.

“This timely report from Global Forest Watch report shows that only 8.5% of Canada’s wilderness today is permanently protected. This is far below the amount that needs to be protected to conserve our country’s biodiversity. We know that the primary reason that species continue to decline so badly is habitat loss, so protecting much more land from industrial development is key to conservation,” says CPAWS National Conservation Director, Alison Woodley.

Over the past decade, the percentage of permanently and temporarily protected lands in Canada has nearly doubled from 6.6% to just over 12%. The federal government’s recent progress on creating or expanding large national parks has made an important contribution to this increase, along with new protected areas created in many provinces and territories.

Contact:
Martin Willison, 477 6102, martin.willison@gmail.com
Chris Miller, 446-4155, cmiller@cpaws.org