Forested land in Pleasant River will be protected from development. (Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust)

About 200 hectares (500 acres) of ecologically significant forest in North Queens will be protected from development by the Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust.

The property in Pleasant River is the first one bought by the trust. The acquisition represents about 12.5 per cent of the organization’s goal to protect 4,000 acres by this spring.

Mary Jane Rodger is the executive director of the trust.

“This is a really exciting step for us, obviously, because it’s the first property we’ve ever purchased,” Mary Jane Rodger, the trust’s executive director, told QCCR, “but then also because of some of the unique habitat features and species at risk that exist in North Queens.”

Rodger says the Pleasant River property is a mixed-wood forest that’s about 35 years old. The trust will keep about 100 acres of it wild, while using the remaining land as a demonstration woodlot to help teach sustainable forestry practices.

“Our organization really has the capacity to help this property achieve its full ecological as well as economic potential. Within our model, we’re heavily vested in the working forest aspect as well as the kind of more traditional conservation aspect. So a portion of this property will be permanently protected.

She said the organizaiton will be “showing woodlot owners different ways to steward their lands or manage their woodlot in a way that you get to cut down trees, but still leave most of them standing and hopefully still be economically profitable.”

The property is also significant because it helps the trust get closer to its goal of accessing the carbon offsets market. That will help raise money to cover the long-term costs of protecting and preserving the forest. 

“Land conservation in itself is an expensive endeavor. You have to send someone out to a woodlot every year to make sure there’s no cutting over boundary lines or invasive species or impacts from climate change. So we need to make sure that as an organization, we have the stability to continue to operate into the future because the nature of what we do is very, very long-term.”

The trust bought the property from Neil Emenau for about $300,000. It partnered with the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute, with funding from Parks Canada and the Southwest Nova Biosphere Region.

The Pleasant River plot is next to the 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) Pu’tlaqne’katik (“shaving lake” or “shingle lake”) Wilderness Area, which is protected by the Nova Scotia Nature Trust.

The woodlands trust says the acquisition enhances an important conservation corridor around Kejimkujik National Park, which will help foster ecological diversity and strengthen wildlife habitat. The land will be protected from development and conventional clearcutting.

“We see so many lakes and rivers, in Queens County and in Lunenburg County get subdivided and you lose a lot of that ecological integrity when people clear their land all the way to the lake. Another key component of this property is there’s quite a significant river frontage along Pleasant River that will remain forested forever.”

And it will still be accessible to the public.

“So we’re hoping that we can encourage folks to access the property for hiking, snowshoeing, skiing, whatever it might be. I know the ATV community does use it as a thoroughfare as well, which we’d be happy to work with them to continue that access.”

Rodger says the trust hopes to get its charitable status this year, so that it will be more attractive for landowners to sell their properties.

Email: rickcconradqccr@gmail.com

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Planting eel grass. Photo courtesy of Ecology Action Centre. Credit: Nicolas Winkler

A pilot project to protect eel grass along part of the coastline in Port Medway got underway this summer.

While the process is established in other parts of the world it is relatively new to Nova Scotia.

Eel grass conservation technician with the Ecology Action Centre Aaron Clausen says eel grass is vitally important as part of a healthy marine ecosystem.

“It’s kind of hard not to overstate the importance of eel grass… kind of hard not to overstate the importance and the benefits that eel grass meadows provide both to the environment and just humans. First and foremost, they provide a great deal of support to our fish populations and commercial fisheries. They create tons of structural habitat for a lot of these species and an area for kind of juveniles as a nursery ground, things like lobster, eel, salmon, and some shellfish,” said Clausen. “Additionally, they improve water quality, oxygenates the water column, remove toxins, excess nutrients and increases clarity and eel grass meadows also protect our Coastline it can dampen strong waves, buffers the shoreline from storm surges and this all helps to slow coastal erosion.”

Clausen says the small aquatic plant could also be part of a solution to a global problem.

“And the last thing that we still don’t really have a great concept of the extent that eel grass can help at least in Nova Scotia, but it captures and stores carbon from the atmosphere in these sediments so it’s potentially a nature based solution.”

The site was selected after a local property owner notified the Ecology Action Centre of dead eel grass washing up on their shore.

Teams from the Ecology Action Centre and Dalhousie University’s Future of Marine Ecosystems Lab partnered to determine which methods work best to restore eel grass in Nova Scotia.

Over 6,000 seed, 250 shoots and 25 sods were transplanted from a donation site to the Port Medway location.

Clausen says they’re hopeful the techniques used in Port Medway can be applied to restore eel grass at other locations in Nova Scotia and beyond.

“One of the main goals of this project is to find a, if there is a way that works and b, if it’s a scalable method,” said Clausen. “Obviously, you want to do as much of this as possible especially with all of the great benefits that eel grass provides. You want to upscale it quickly.”

The Ecology Action Centre has set up a site where citizen scientists can help track the location of eel grass across the province.

Input from everyday Nova Scotians will be added to a map of eel grass meadows that will help government, academic researchers and other non-profit and community groups monitor the location and conditions of the meadows.

Follow this link to participate in the eelgrass mapping project:

www.inaturalist.org/projects/eac-eelgrass-mapping-project

Clausen says the team will continue monitoring the eel grass transplant site late into the fall and will return in the spring.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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