Internal memo appears to have functionally delisted thousands of hectares of wetlands of special significance in Nova Scotia

The wording of the “routine clarification” communicated internally to staff in the Department of Environment and Climate Change, and leaked to the CBC— raises alarm bells about the fate of wetlands that overlap with designated protected areas.

According to Nova Scotia’s Wetlands Conservation Policy, wetlands of special significance (WSS) are those that cannot be altered in any way and include wetlands that are within or partially within a designated Ramsar site, Provincial Wildlife Management Area (crown and provincial lands only), provincial park, nature reserve, wilderness area, or lands owned or legally protected by non-governmental charitable conservation land trusts.

However, this is not what the “routine clarification” states.

Vernal pool near Herring Cove. Photo: Wetlands Conservation Policy

As I previously reported here, according to the leaked memo, the directive relating to Ramsar sites and protected areas, etc., stipulated that the designation of WSS “would be limited to”: 

The portion of wetlands that overlap with a designated Ramsar site (sites of international importance), provincial wildlife management area, provincial park, nature reserve, wilderness area or lands owned or legally protected by non-government charitable conservation land trusts.

The key phrase to take note of here is: the portion of wetlands that overlap with…

In other words—and this is what the internal directive says—the policy should now be interpreted to mean that only the part of the wetland that overlaps (or exists within) with the designated area is WSS and therefore protected. If this is the case—and there is no reason to think otherwise—then this is not only a contradiction of the policy, but a serious downgrading of it.

Prior to the “routine clarification” the interpretation was that if a portion of wetland overlapped with the designated site, then the entire wetland would be considered WSS, including the portion that existed outside the site’s boundary.

The “routine clarification” appears to have functionally delisted a significant amount— likely thousands of hectares—of wetlands of special significance. 

As an illustration, this new interpretation of the wetland policy could mean that if you have a 100 ha wetland and 20 ha of it is inside the boundary of a wilderness area, in theory a developer could infill the 80 ha outside the boundary. But this would essentially dry up and kill the wetland that's in the protected area.

I contacted the Department of Environment’s director of communications Elizabeth MacDonald to ask her whether this represented a downgrading of the policy and she replied: “The Policy, which was created as an internal tool for staff to use in their work, has not changed.” 

Quite frankly, her response just isn’t good enough. I pressed for a clearer answer:

“It’s either a yes or no answer, actually. Going forward, will the portion of wetlands that exist outside of, but are also part of, any of the designated areas listed (Ramsar sites, protected areas, etc) be considered WSS? Worded another way: Is it only the portion of wetland that exists within the boundaries of a designated area that will be considered WSS?”

MacDonald replied this morning with the following:

“There are a number of variables that are used to categorize a Wetland of Special Significance.”

If you’re like me, I wondered if her response got cut off somehow. Surely there had to be more to the answer, I thought. But no, that was it. It didn’t address my question explicitly, but I think it’s fair to say that the portion of a wetland that exists outside a designated boundary will no longer be automatically considered WSS:

A number of variables will be used to determine WSS, and overlap with a designated area will only be one of them.

I also reached out to the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables (DNRR) to find out the area of wetlands in the province that a) exist within these designated sites, and b) are connected to these sites but exist outside their boundaries.

I was told by DNRR communications that it “will take some time to pull together the information.”

According to the Wetlands Conservation Policy, a province-wide inventory of wetlands was completed in 2004 by the NSDNR (now DNRR), based on visual interpretation of aerial photographs taken between 1985 and 1997 and then reclassified using satellite imagery from 2000-2002. Based in this inventory, the province has 360,462 hectares (6.5% of total land area) of freshwater wetlands and 17,060 ha of salt marsh (0.3% of total land area).

I reached out to Mimi O'Handley, the wetlands and water co-ordinator for the Ecology Action Centre to see what she thought about the issue.

O’Handley says:

The clarifications that were circulated the other week do weaken the Nova Scotia Wetland Conservation Policy. It is incredibly disappointing that the government has chosen to clarify the policy in a way that weakens it, when any clarifications made should be done in a way that further strengthens wetland protections. Wetlands are particularly important for climate change mitigation and adaption. From a climate change adaptation lens, I would argue that the destruction or degradation of wetlands is a public safety concern. Healthy wetlands can help to protect people, homes and communities during extreme weather events such as hurricanes, wildfires and floods, all of which Nova Scotia has experienced in this last year alone. Unfortunately, an alarming percentage of wetlands around the world, including here in Nova Scotia, have been destroyed or degraded by human activity; this means that all remaining wetlands are even more valuable and important to protect. This routine clarification is not serving the best interests of Nova Scotians, our communities, local ecosystems, or the natural environment.

O’Handley also points out that while the current government is ushering in weaker protections, Nova Scotians are actually calling for stronger ones. She points to two workshops that took place in Halifax Regional Municipality last February, on World Wetlands Day. She says, “members of the general public, and professionals, including academics, government staff, grassroots activists, ENGO representatives, whose work intersects with wetlands and wetland issues, gathered to discuss their hopes and visions for wetland management in Nova Scotia.”

The meetings culminated in a report titled “What We Heard,” which laid out in no uncertain terms, there needs to be stronger, better protection of wetlands and it needs to be rooted in ecosystem science.

The recommendations included making the WSS inventory publicly available and “providing stronger protections for species through WSS.”  

According to the CBC, the internal memo to government staff also stated that the determination of whether a wetland can be altered "will acknowledge changing circumstances and priorities since the policy was developed," and that the definition of necessary public function can also include "housing, commercial/industrial, renewables, etc."

So we can now justify the destruction of the most endangered ecosystem on Earth for wind turbines or more housing because they are a “necessary public function”?

The whole episode points to the lack of transparency, and the government’s disdain for not only public opinion and democratic principles, but basic ecosystem science.

I would even go one step further here and say the government is spreading misinformation by distorting the facts and continuing to state the policy has not changed, when clearly it now contradicts it.

[If you value this kind of reporting, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription]