The municipality has finally put some of its money where its mouth is to protect Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes. On Friday afternoon HRM announced it had purchased nearly 200 acres of property near Hobson Lake from West Bedford Holdings. It’s the first land acquisition by Halifax towards creating a new regional park around the Blue […]
Wilderness
Posted inNews + Opinion
Decision postponed on developing land earmarked as wilderness park
A wilderness jewel just 15 minutes from downtown Halifax has been spared from development, at least for a few years. At issue is the Birch Cove Lakes-Blue Mountain wilderness area, which has been designated as a future regional wilderness park in the HRM Regional Plan (see here). I’ve explained the development pressures on the privately […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Birch Cove Lakes-Blue Mountain wilderness threatened by development
A high-powered and high-dollared political battle in City Hall is playing out largely unnoticed by local media. At stake are potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in suburban development and the future of a proposed wilderness park celebrated as an unparallelled urban gem by environmentalists. Over the past few years wilderness advocates have successfully convinced […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Seal slaughter on Sable Island?
Federal government sets quota for seal cull on Sable Island, but says there will be no hunt this year.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Suburban homes proposed for park
If Halifax’s most politically connected developers get their way, land within the city’s proposed Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lake Wilderness Park will instead get developed as suburban neighbourhoods. The land in question is 500 acres west of the Bicentennial Highway, owned by four groups—Annapolis Group, Armco Capital, Gateway Materials and Sisters of Charity. The largest of […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes wilderness threatened
A group of four landowners is pushing for land designated as part of the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes wilderness park to be re-zoned for residential housing and apartments. The proposed park is a chunk of land the size of the Halifax peninsula, stretching from the Bayers Lake Industrial Park to Hammonds Plains. It includes a […]
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NDP deliver protected wilderness to seal hunters
Oh, how I wish I could declare Province House a protected wilderness. How else to preserve that rare and forever-endangered flower, political common sense. Now that the NDP juggernaut has swept into office, political common sense may be trampled into extinction. Consider, for example, last week’s verbal gyrations performed by our new environment minister. Sterling […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Be aware of wildernesses
To the editor, Recently, the Department of Environment released a public discussion document for the province’s three new wilderness areas: Blue Mountain–Birch Cove Lakes, Ship Harbour–Long Lake and Shelburne River. The paper, “Socioeconomic Impact Analysis of Designating Wilderness Areas,” identifies a range of land uses occuring on these properties. The document also identifies activities that […]