Author: maherrv

Last Thursday, Heather and I went to the Extinction Rebellion (XR) encampment on crown land within the Southwest Nova Biosphere region.

It is about a two hour drive from our home base in Paradise. You take Highway #101 to Weymouth and then head inland towards the Tobeatic Wilderness Area. This requires driving over twenty kilometres on forestry roads.

On our return home, I wanted to check our route and thus went to the Nova Scotia Atlas. The area of interest is on page 71. What struck me was the difference in land use designation between 2001 (first edition) and 2019 (seventh edition). This is perhaps best illustrated by page 64. (See photographs).

The map sheet has changed colour. From primarily white (private land ownership in 2001) to primarily green (crown lands) and yellow (provincial parks, wilderness areas and nature reserves) in 2019. My assumption is that this is the result of the Bowater Mersey land coming under the management of the provincial department of Lands and Forestry. In 2016, WestFor Management Inc. was established to implement the forest management.

The good news is that the yellow areas are ‘protected’ from clearcutting. The bad news is that the green areas ‘crown lands’ are available for cutting at the discretion of the provincial government, in association with WestFor.

These findings need to be placed within the context of the Biosphere Reserve. The Southwest Nova Biosphere Reserve was established in 2001. At that time, it defined as a core area: Kejimkujik National Park and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area and the surrounding working landscape. At the time of review, UNESCO MAB insisted on a definition of the buffer zone, which would require engagement of interested parties, in particular, the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry.

Last week, Doug Hickman sent a report to UNESCO, the provincial and municipal governments which identifies the need for a management plan which protects the habitat of endangered species in the region, in particular the mainland moose (see download links, below).

Meanwhile, cutting continues apace on both private land and crown land.

Acknowledgements.

Doug Hickman for producing a comprehensive review of the situation in a short time frame. Heather for her work on a safety plan. Edward for his graphics skills.

References

The Nova Scotia Atlas. 2001. Fifth edition co-published by Formac and the Province of Nova Scotia.

The Nova Scotia Atlas 2019. Seventh edition co-published by Formac and the Province of Nova Scotia

Doug Hickman, November 18, 2020. Backgrounder and Report (two documents) “GUTTED. Endangered Mainland Moose and how the government of Nova Scotia makes a mockery of UNESCO” (see below)

In these COVID times, it was a relief to receive a new season of The Crown on Netflix (ten episodes ).

Watching the first two episodes, one was reminded of the definition of crown lands in Great Britain. There were images of deer hunting, shooting grouse in the Scottish Highlands around Balmoral. It is the playground of the privileged. Seeing ‘Prince Charles’ one remembers his time at Gordonstoun.

How much of this colonial past are we bringing to Nova Scotia ? Is this a culture of monied privilege that we are importing into the Annapolis Valley ?

The good news is The Crown series, an excellent product from the BBC, reminds us both of the class system in Great Britain and acts as a vivid reminder of the term ‘crown lands’. At a time when we need to revisit the concept in Nova Scotia.

Driving down Highway #1 from Bridgetown to Annapolis Royal, just past The Broken Wheel B&B, Heather remarked on the invasion of multiflora rose (see earlier blog post) on the south side of the road towards the Annapolis River. Clearly, it does not take much neglect before these species colonize abandoned fields and take them out of production.

We noted, too, the new pavement on Highway #1. Unlike Highway #201, there seems to be little truck traffic, either logs or aggregate.

Is this because the Premier has a home on Highway #1? Is it because different highways have different codes? Or perhaps the residents on Highway #201 are less vocal in their opposition to logging and aggregate trucks? Or the logs and aggregate are coming off South Mountain? Incognito? Who knows.

Regardless, I am content that I am able to watch Netflix at home on a dark Winter evening.

Acknowledgements

Heather is my observant travel companion. Edward is my blog graphic designer.

This weekend, I had the time to read carefully Gary Snyder’s essay, The Place, the Region and the Commons in The Practice of the Wild.

“David Foreman, founder of the Earth First ! Movement recently (1990) states his radical provenance. ‘It came from the Public Lands Conservation movement – the solid, stodgy movement that goes back to the thirties and before. Yet these land and wildlife issues were what politicized John Muir, John Wesley Powell and Aldo Leopold — the abuses of public land.” p.29.

“American Public lands are the twentieth-century incarnation of a much older institution known across Eurasia – in English, called the ‘commons’ – which was the ancient mode of both protecting and managing the wilds of the self-governing regions. It worked well enough until the age of market economics, colonization and imperialism.”:

“Because it is traditional and local, it is not identical with today’s ‘public domain’ which is land held and managed by a central government. Under a national state such management may be destructive or benign – but in no case is it locally managed. One of the ideas in the current debate on how to reform our public lands is that of returning them to regional control.”

“In the United States, an enormous area was de facto public domain and the Forest Service, the Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management were formed to manage it. (The same sorts of land in Canada and Australia are called ”Crown Lands”, a reflection of the history of English rulers trying to wrest the Commons from the people.”

“The commons is a curious and elegant social institution within which human beings once lived free political lives while weaving through natural systems. The commons is a level of organization of human society that includes the non-human. The level above the local commons is the Bio-region. Understanding the Commons and it’s role within the larger regional culture is one more step towards integrating ecology with economy.” p.37.

From my conversations with David Sollows and Cliff Drysdale (both with SNBRA) it appears that we need to have a similar discussion about Crown lands in Nova Scotia.

Perhaps a starting point would be for the key players: SNBRA, NS Department of Lands and Forestry, Municipal governments and WestFor to check out Gary Snyder’s essay: The Place, The Region and the Commons.

Acknowledgements
David Sollows and Cliff Drysdale for their interaction. Edward and Heather for their support.

Reference

Gary Snyder, 1990. The Practice of the Wild. North Point Press.

Postscript

Memories of Haida Gwaii