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Government Commits to Protect 12 Percent of Nova Scotia Land

March 22, 2007

Minister of Environment and Labour Mark Parent announced the new Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act. This new legislation commits the government to meet specific, measurable targets on a wide variety of environmental issues. In all, the act features more than 20 objectives to help Nova Scotia become cleaner and more sustainable.

The most significant target for the Public Lands Campaign is a legal commitment to protect 12 percent of the provincial landmass by 2015. The goal of 12 percent originates from the international commitments made by Canada at the famous Rio Earth Summit in the early 1990s. Currently Nova Scotia has protected about 8.2 percent of its land.

"The inclusion of this goal in the new Act would not have happened without the Public Lands Campaign having successfully pushed the issue in the preceding 7 years," said Raymond Plourde, Wilderness Coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre.

The new Act also sets out targets in a number of other important environmental areas, including green house gas emission reductions, a coastal management plan and a review of forestry practices.

Further, the new law has mandated accountability built in. Nova Scotia will be one of a few provinces in Canada that has specific requirements for reporting environmental progress. Once a year the Minister of Environment will be required to report to the public and to the legislature on progress toward meeting the various goals laid out in the new legislation.

The 12 percent commitment – which members of the Public Lands coalition have been advocating for years – is now enshrined in law with a specific timetable for completion. To achieve this the government will have to designate over 200,000 more hectares of land. The significance of this development for Nature conservation in Nova Scotia cannot be overstated. NSPLC has identified 19 hotspots on publicly owned Crown land and has been pushing for their protection for years. In 2005 two of these hotspots (Gully Lake and Eigg Mountain) became the province's newest protected Wilderness Areas, bringing the total number of these large natural areas up to 33.

There is still much work to be done. Another 17 hotspots identified by NSPLC are still in need of protection.