Joshua Barss Donham produced a 9 minute YouTube video highlighting some of his winter birding sights in the Backlands over the winter of 2022/2023.
It features some really beautiful Backlands scenery, in the air, on trees, on the water and ice.
What a great way to celebrate the winter past!
Joshua has also provided a list of species shown in the video. Read more
Thx JBD!
The Backlands Coalition and the Nova Scotia Nature Trust hosted an event at the Purcell’s Cove Social Club recently to celebrate and thank four families who had donated their lands in the Backlands to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust (NSNT.) Writes Cathy Vaughan in the Chebucto News for April 2023.
The Longard, Napier, Field, and Duggan families gifted their lands, over the past several years, to add to NSNT’s properties in the Backlands. The families want to protect the unique ecosystems, important wildlife corridors, distinctive land formations and the globally rare Jack Pine-Broom Crowberry communities. They feel it is important to provide permanent access to these stunningly beautiful properties in the Spryfield area.
Commented Councillor Patty Cuttell of the Sambro Loop – Prospect Road, District 11, in which the Backlands are situated:
Their gift shows appreciation for the environment, including the wildlife that depends on it. It shows personal selflessness by allowing others to access and enjoy this land around us. And it shows their belief in the future and the generations to come by ensuring they too have places that have been kept natural and wild for them.
Indeed, these are wonderful gifts. Thanks Backlands Families, Thanks NSNT, and Thanks Cathy Vaughan for writing about it.
Continue reading
UPDATE: “HRM Budget – Green Network Plan Coordinator
$89,600 for a Green Network Plan coordinator was added to the budget without debate! The topic was brought up a few times, but only with supportive sentiments. No one motioned to debate it or remove it from the budget. Of note, Mayor Savage was very vocal about his support. This is a huge success for Our HRM Alliance members who have been fighting for a greenbelt plan since 2011, and now committed to seeing the plan implemented!” SOURCE – Our HRM Alliance Newsletter for April 2023 (received Apr 12, 2023)
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ORIGINAL POST
At the HRM Budget Committee on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, the HRM Council has an opportunity to put a Coordinator in place for implementing the Halifax Green Network Plan (HGNP).
We urge supporters of the Backlands to express their support for such a position by calling your Counciilor/writing the Mayor and Council..
More background is provided in this opinion piece published on the EAC website today: Continue reading
By Martha Leary
Barred Owl, commonly sighted in the Backlands, overwinters here By Mdf – Taken by Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0,
It’s February and time for the Great Backyard Bird Count.
Sponsored by the Audubon Society, this bird count is easy peasy. Watch in your own backyard for as little 15 minutes or take a short winter hike in your favourite part of the Backlands and send the record of your observations to birdcount.org Information from their websites tells us: “Recently, more than 300,000 participants submitted their bird observations online, creating the largest instantaneous snapshot of global bird populations ever recorded.” With bird numbers declining, your input helps us learn more about what kinds of measures help bird populations to be successful during these times of climate change.
David Patriquin and the Backlands Coalition have created a special project on iNaturalist to help us understand the natural world of birds, plants, fungi and animals in the Backlands. If you are within the Backlands and record your observations on iNaturalist, your observations will be tallied on the project Halifax Backlands for the use of all https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/halifax-ns-backlands Continue reading
In saltwire.com, Feb 2, 2023: PERSPECTIVE: Protect natural assets Nova Scotia has left
by Sheila Stevenson, co-chair of the Ferguson’s Cove Neighbourhood Association and a member of Our HRM Alliance.
She also sent the text City Clerk for distribution to the Mayor and Council who will be discussing the Green Network Plan tomorrow (Feb 7, 2023) re: Item No. 8 Halifax Regional Council February 7, 2023 SUBJECT: Green Network Plan Coordination and Resourcing
Some extracts from Sheila’s Op-ed:
Rome was burning, Nero fiddled. A similar story is playing out in Halifax Regional Municipality as natural landscapes and natural assets are obliterated before our eyes.
Click on image to go to the Halifax Green Network Plan (2018)
The objectives of “growth” and “speeding up development” espoused by the premier and his housing task force are accelerating what Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, calls “the orgy of destruction,” causing loss of biodiversity and speeding up climate change.
Halifax regional council accepted, as policies, the Halifax Green Network Plan (2018) and HalifACT, the Climate Action Plan (2020), but development practices such as filling in wetlands and wiping out plant communities continue to destroy natural systems that freely offer goods and services: clean water, nutrient cycling, water purification, climate regulation, erosion control, clean air, food, fiber, recreational spaces and wildlife corridors… Continue reading
Received from EAC:
“A Protecting Wetlands Workshop cohosted by the Ecology Action Centre, Nature Nova Scotia and Halifax Regional Municipality, [will be] taking place on World Wetlands Day (Thursday February 2) from 9:00am to 12:30pm at the Captain Spry Centre in Halifax. To register for the morning session use this link:https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=B4ytwUMUokqYQUBKkBSIlgqELyam8z9Mptu5wN-Dey9UNjVTN1ozRFhDTEM4TkFXTlZVQ1lDOFBYTi4u
“This workshop will bring together a variety of stakeholders throughout the HRM who have interests in Nova Scotia wetlands and wetland management. This exploratory and collaborative workshop will include brief presentations about different aspects of wetlands in Nova Scotia, followed by activities for participants to brainstorm and discuss ideas of visions for future wetlands management.
“Later in the day, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm, the Ecology Action Centre and Nature Nova Scotia will be hosting a similar workshop geared towards the public. During both workshops there will be an opportunity for local groups and organizations to set up a small exhibition table with posters or other educational materials for workshop participants to look at.”
Join us for this Nature NS Talk:
“The Chebucto Peninsula and Moose Habitat Connectivity”
Tues Jan 10th at 7 pm. Recorded on YouTube
UPDATE Jan 10, 2023
A few items of interest from the webinar:
– The main reasons for excluding the Chebucto Peninusla from the CORE areas for Mainland Moose are, to paraphrase, (i) the low number of moose, on the Chebucto Peninsula even in better times, and (ii) the very poor connectivity between the interior of the Chebucto Peninsula and the greater NS mainland due to development/major highways along the neck of the peninsula. The target is to bring the population up to 5000 animals province-wide and the Chebucto Peninsula will simply not play a significant role in reaching that target. K.B., a member of the Moose Recovery Team said she strongly advocated for including the Chebucto Peninusula as a CORE area, but understood the reasons that was rejected by the team as a whole and she noted that nevertheless, the moose on the Chebucto Peninsula are still protected.
The Chebucto Peninsula, courtesy of Plasma_east
– There was a lot of discussion of the need for increasing wildlife connectivity between the Chebucto Peninsula and the greater NS mainland regardless of the moose issue. Concern was expressed that the NS Government is not giving much attention to this issue, e.g. as massive new road building is announced.
– C.C. emphasized the importance of ‘building up, not out’ in urban areas so as reduce impacts on wildlife habitat in more rural areas; social equity is part of the issue as well.
– M.L. noted that a lot of the interior of Chebucto Peninsula is roadless and protected; development occurs mostly around the periphery. Significantly, the interior generally hosts very few white-tailed deer*
*Low deer numbers are very much a positive benefit for moose because of the role of deer in propagating moose brainworm.
– M.L., who knows the area well and has been looking for moose and signs of moose (especially their browse of red maple), is confident that there are at least 5 animals on the Chebucto Peninsula currently, and that there has been calving in recent years. He observed a dead moose this past December, the death apparently due to natural causes (he mentioned predation) rather than poaching. Continue reading
Wrote birder Joshua Barss Donham on New Years Day:
Happy New Year to all!
Majesty in the Backlands! Watched this magnificent Bald Eagle dry its wings and preen while perched in a pine overlooking the lower Macintosh Run this afternoon. Spryfield, 1 January 2023. #keepthebacklandswild
Click on images for larger versions.
Continue reading
Alan Ruffman, a marine geologist well known to the environmental community in the Halifax area and a regular participant in public hearings related to the Backlands, passed away on Dec 28, 2022. Some extracts from A legacy of community activism: Alan Ruffman dies at 82 by Vernon Ramesar · CBC News Dec 31, 2022: Continue reading
From Nova Scotia Nature Trust*:
“We’re excited to announce six new protected areas across the province that will be secured before the end of 2022, from Cape Breton to the south shore. On the heels of the recent COP15 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, halting biodiversity loss has never felt more urgent, with world leaders now aligned on a global target to protect 30 per cent of the planet by 2030. This announcement is a timely step toward that ambitious goal…The Nature Trust’s newest protected areas include:
