N.S. won’t strengthen land with ‘globally rare’ ecosystem that association eyes for golf resort

In a small village of Little Harbour on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore sits 285 hectares of coastal Crown land famous as Owls Head provincial park. The name is misleading: it’s not indeed a provincial park and there are no apparent markings or trails to enter a coastal barrens and wetlands.

But a headland, that has been managed as a park reserve, is critical for some of a characteristics.

According to a province, it’s one of 9 sites in Nova Scotia with a “globally rare” ecosystem and home to several concerned species. For 6 years, Owls Head has been one of a provincial properties accessible authorised protection.

But that altered final Mar when, after several years of lobbying by and discussions with a private developer who wants to acquire a land as partial of a devise to build as many as 3 golf courses, a Treasury Board sensitively private a designation, according to annals CBC News perceived in response to an access-to-information request.

This sets adult a latest conditions in Nova Scotia where charge and environmental insurance efforts seem staid to hit with mercantile growth interests as a developer hopes to pierce a kind of traveller captivate and pursuit opportunities to a Eastern Shore that Inverness is realizing from a Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs golf courses.

The preference to de-list Owls Head was done regulating a notation letter, that is stable by cupboard confidentiality and so not accessible for a open to see. Government documents, however, make transparent a devise which, until now, has been different to a public.

Lighthouse Links Development Company, that is owned by American integrate Beckwith Gilbert and his wife, Kitty, is behind a proposal. They already possess 138 hectares of land subsequent to a Owls Head property.

Gilbert has a credentials in businessman banking and has been heavily concerned in medical research.

He was not accessible for an interview, though in an emailed matter he pronounced a integrate over “a dream to possess and safety an unspoiled, healthy sea beach” when they started shopping land in Little Harbour 16 years ago.

As he and his mother got to know a community, Gilbert pronounced “it became fast apparent that additional practice opportunities in a area were indispensable to inspire people to pierce to a Eastern Shore, rather than pierce away.”

The thought for one golf march blossomed into dual or 3 after articulate to architects, he said.

“They emphasized that mixed adjacent courses were compulsory to grasp essential operations. Since we didn’t have adequate land for some-more than one course, we approached a range and due appropriation their new adjacent land.”

Gilbert’s vision, according to a notation sent on his interest to then-natural resources apportion Lloyd Hines’s executive partner in 2016, that CBC obtained, is for something identical to a Cabot review or Bandon Dunes golf review in Oregon.

Chris Miller, a charge biologist and executive executive of a Nova Scotia bend of a Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, called a offer “deeply concerning.”

Miller pronounced a land is critical since of how most there is, permitting for some-more endless ecosystems than what is typically found along a seashore and since so small of a province’s seashore is publicly owned and protected.

“It’s a place where charge values and inlet need to come initial and tellurian and mercantile growth is usually within a context of safeguarding those values,” he said.

‘Surprised and disappointed’

Like Miller, Nova Scotia Nature Trust executive executive Bonnie Sutherland pronounced she had no thought about the change in designation, that still has not been updated on a provincial website.

Sutherland’s classification was intending to embody Owls Head as partial of a 100 Wild Islands project, that aims to strengthen a archipelago off a Eastern Shore. About 85 per cent of that work is complete.

“We’re really astounded and disappointed,” she said. “To remove that medium is really significant.”

Sutherland forked to a concerned class famous to live and, in some cases, nest on a land, including piping plovers and stable swallows. Other class of “conservation concern” famous to be there, according to supervision documents, embody a ruby-crowned kinglet and common eider.

There are “unique boreal and ascetic plants and lichens” and Owls Head is one of 9 sites in a range with “the globally singular coastal brush crowberry heathland ecosystem,” pronounced a documents.

But Lands and Forestry Minister Iain Rankin pronounced a supervision was gentle stealing a nomination since a land isn’t a priority for authorised protection.

By stealing a designation, a supervision can now have a land appraised and start some-more grave negotiations for a intensity sale, pronounced Rankin. The final preference was done by weighing a choice to strengthen with a intensity for economic growth in a farming area, he said.

“There isn’t high biodiversity value when we review [it] to other pieces of land that we’ve modernized [for authorised protection],” pronounced Rankin. He pronounced a preference would not impact a government’s ability to strech its idea of authorised insurance of 13 per cent of all Nova Scotia land.

The golf devise has had a support of Central Nova MP Sean Fraser and Eastern Shore MLA Kevin Murphy. In Aug 2018, a association hired former provincial Liberal cupboard apportion Michel Samson to run on a behalf.

Owls Head isn’t a usually Crown land Lighthouse Links wants to acquire.

Province negotiating with feds on company’s behalf

The range is in negotiations with a sovereign supervision on interest of a association to buy about 17 hectares of over-abundance Crown land subsequent to Owls Head that’s home to an programmed light guide and helipad. Ottawa would keep 0.09 hectares, including a helipad and light, and sell a rest to a range for $167,500.

Originally a land was offering for $1, though that compulsory a range to use it for a open purpose. Had a range not intent Ottawa on a offer, a land would have left to open sale.

An sequence in legislature commendatory that traffic was upheld in August (unlike notation letters, orders in legislature are posted online). Rankin pronounced he sees a company’s offer as a good event and pronounced any kind of growth would still have to honour a germane environmental regulations.

“I see golf courses coexistent with opportunities for safeguarding a environment,” he said.

Miller, who pronounced such a growth would irreparably change Owls Head, disagrees.

There sojourn about 90 properties with tentative stable standing from a Parks and Protected Areas Plan of 2013 and Miller has regularly called on a range to consult authorised insurance to all of them, a pierce that would outcome in about 14 per cent of Nova Scotia’s land being protected.

Province is ‘dragging a feet,’ says conservationist

“The supervision has been boring a feet and this is accurately a problem,” he said. “The longer it goes before a authorised nomination is applied, a some-more and some-more expected that it’s going to get chipped divided and that one site here will get tossed [and] another site will get tossed.

“Some mercantile event of this or that will come along and before we know it a whole devise is undermined.”

A orator for a Lands and Forestry Department pronounced officials are unknowingly of any other negotiations or requests from private parties for land on a Parks and Protected Areas list that hasn’t been authorized nonetheless for protection.

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Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/natural-resources-protected-land-golf-course-development-1.5397821?cmp=rss