Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area declared protected at last!!!
Decade-long conservation campaign ends in victory for nature
September 17, 2009
The Ecology Action Centre and our friends at the Eastern Shore Forest Watch are celebrating the successful conclusion of a more than ten-year long campaign to protect the Ship Harbour Long Lake area. On Thursday, September 17 the area was legally designated by the provincial government as Nova Scotia’s newest protected Wilderness Area guaranteeing that it will remain “forever wild” by making it off-limits to all forms of industrial activity. The EAC and ESFW have been advocating for the area’s protection for over a decade along with Public Lands Coalition partner organizations including the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia, the Sierra Club of Canada – Atlantic Chapter, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – Nova Scotia Chapter, Canoe-Kayak Nova Scotia, Trout Nova Scotia and many more.
The new Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area represents one of the last relatively wild and pristine areas in mainland Nova Scotia. It covers 14,700 hectares of magnificent Acadian forest with an estimated 24 million trees that will never see a saw. It also contains more than 50 lakes and innumerable numbers of rivers, streams and wetlands. The area also provides home and habitat to a large number of native wildlife species including 13 at-risk species and the endangered mainland moose. The new Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness Area now effectively links the previously protected White Lake Wilderness Area near Middle Musquodoboit and the Tangier Grand Lake Wilderness Area near Tangier.
Like all designated Wilderness Areas, the new Ship Harbour Long Lake Wilderness area will continue to be open to people and traditional low-impact recreational activities including hiking, camping, canoeing and fishing.
Click here to see the cover story in the Sunday Chronicle Herald’s “The Nova Scotian” newsmagazine: http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/1147123.html
Click here to see a special TV report on how the area finally came to be protected: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2C_UE1RKms
Click here to read the NS government press release: http://gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20090917004
Click here to see a map of the new Ship Harbour long Lake Wilderness Area: http://www.gov.ns.ca/nse/protectedareas/docs/SHLLMap.pdf
Click here to learn more about protected areas in Nova Scotia: http://www.gov.ns.ca/nse/protectedareas/
Since 1971, the EAC has been working to build a healthier, more sustainable Nova Scotia.
Ecology Action Centre
2705 Fern Lane
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada B3K 4L3
Phone: (902) 429-2202
Fax: (902) 405-3716
Email: info@ecologyaction.ca
