The 25 rare mainland moose who live there may not be happy that ATVs are still allowed in the Five Bridge Lake Wilderness Area, but the groups who fought to have the 8,600-hectares of Crown Land protected promise to play nice with them. OpenFile reporter Lizzy Hill rounds up responses from some of the groups responsible for the protected status.
The province granted official wilderness status yesterday to 8,600 hectares of Crown lands in the Five Bridge Lakes area. The land includes forest, barrens, wetlands, rivers and lakes and is home to a population of around 25 endangered mainland moose.
"The community really wanted this area protected. They've been working towards that goal for many years," says Department of Environment spokesperson Lori Errington. A diverse range of over 30 organizations formed the Chebucto Wilderness Coalition in support of the organization, including groups such as the Safety Minded ATV Association, The Ecology Action Centre, Trout Nova Scotia and The Three Brooks Homeowners’ Association. Though the groups all support the designation of the wilderness area, multiple organizations, individuals and interest groups across the province have different takes on how government should manage the wilderness area.
Recreation
The Five Bridge Lake Wilderness Area will provide hiking, canoeing, kayaking, trout fishing, hunting and jogging opportunities along the 30 km Bluff Wilderness Hiking Trail. The province will also allow ATV use on a couple old roads (Old Coach Rd. and Fire Rd.) cutting straight through the Wilderness Area. Though ATV-use is not typically permitted on roads in designated wilderness areas, Errington explains that government can make exceptions by moving the boundaries of the wilderness area to exclude certain roads.
“Our ATV group and other ATV riders are very happy to see this piece of Nova Scotia preserved for our future generations,” says Mike Mariott, president of Nova Scotia’s Safety Minded ATV Association. Mariott’s organization now has a more defined role in managing the trails to minimize the environmental impact of ATV-use (such as the shredding of trails). ATV users must maintain the trails themselves under an Off-Highway Vehicle Trail Management Agreement.
Protecting the area includes protecting the moose
Government now faces the challenge of balancing recreational interests with protecting the area’s wildlife. "There's no doubt that recreational use has potential to affect moose and that's something that we have to be careful about when we manage the area," explains Oliver Maass, the Policy and Program Coordinator for Nova Scotia Environment’s Protected Areas Branch. He’s right to express concern: A new study by Colin Shanley of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, found that ATV tracks resulted in habitat loss for moose in Alaska. Male moose steered clear of areas of up to 500 metres (1/3 of a mile) from ATV tracks us, while females protecting their calves wouldn’t come within 1 kilometre of ATV tracks.
Fred Harrington, a local wildlife expert, conducted similar research in Labrador and found that low-level aircraft disturbed a population of woodland caribou in Goose Bay.
Harrington cautions that any human disturbance (including ATVs, mountain bikes, hikers and dogs) may disturb the area’s endangered moose population. “To take a lesson from my research in Labrador, we found evidence that disturbance on caribou was most likely during the calf's first month or so of life, so we recommended closures and avoidance of calving areas during this period,” says Harrington. “The same kind of time-sharing could be proposed here, with restrictions placed during the calving/immediate post-calving period.”
Can't log is---is it still worth anything?
The Nova Scotia Environment Protected Areas completed a socio-economic analysis of the area, finding that the forestry industry could take a $1.3 to $2.5 million hit if the area became an official Wilderness Area (the designation prohibits the commercial harvesting of wood). But Maass points out that there are carbon credits hiding in all those woods.
“Research is pointing generally to the fact that natural, wild forests tend to store more carbon than the managed forests on site,” explains Maass. Living matter above ground, such as leaves, as well as roots, wetlands and soil all store carbon. It’s tough to assign dollar amount to carbon, as its market price goes up and down, but "you can put a rough dollar value on it by looking at carbon trading systems." The Protected Areas Branch estimates that the carbon-storing and uptake value of the Five Bridge Lake Wilderness area exceeds $1 million.
No wind for folks living nearby
Designating the Five Bridge Lake area a wilderness area prohibits the development of a small wind project on the east side of Hubley Big Lake in Three Brooks, a very suburban community folks are drawn to for its wilderness setting. Paula Richardson lives “half a kilometre down a dirt road” from the edge of the wilderness area. Richardson wanted to investigate the potential of putting one or two windmills on the lake, as she was keen to get off the grid. She feels that “environment and energy should not be mutually exclusive.” Regardless, Richardson says that she and her fellow community members “fully support” the designation of the land as a wilderness area.
Mi'kmaq: We were here first
The government is now in consultations with the Mi’kmaq, who have a history of using the Chebucto Peninsula for hunting, fishing, gathering and camping. Though the wilderness area status will safeguard many of these activities, it may also prohibit activities such as building permanent hunting camps in the area.
