The hard working activists who are trying to save a small community and the pristine landscape of Owls Head Provincial Park from becoming a golf course and resort for wealthy tourists may not have won the battle (yet) but they have been remarkably successful in getting their message out. We speak with two of its organizers to see if there are lessons we can learn.
Martyn Williams writes to members of the Halifax Transportation Standing Committee who are discussing the annual road safety framework report today at 1pm. “The municipality is not experiencing a traffic flow or congestion crisis. It is experiencing a road safety crisis that is disproportionately affecting people who are most vulnerable.”
Last week journalist Stephen Wentzell sat down with Gary Burrill, the leader of the provincial NDP, to have a wide-ranging conversation about issues dear to the Nova Scotia Advocate’s heart, things like the climate crisis and the threat to biodiversity, the sale of Owls Head Provincial Park, poverty and social assistance, housing and rent control, healthcare and many other issues
Journalist Brooklyn Connolly speaks with Chris Miller and others about the significance of the sighting of the rare leatherback sea turtle feeding in the waters off Owls Head Provincial Park. “When you’re working so hard to try and do something like protect Owls Head, just a moment for nature to look back at you and say ‘yeah’ – I think that’s really important,” says Katherine Martin of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network.
PSA: Lilly Barraclough: I am recruiting youth research participants in Mi’kma’ki for my thesis on examining how politically active youth experience climate grief.
Reporter Brooklyn Connolly takes a closer look at the attorney general’s finding that after four years the province still has not acted on several recommendations to strengthen the protection of endangered species.
A sidewalk closure on Young Street requires pedestrians, wheelchair and mobility scooter users to take a detour of more than 500 metres to access essential services.Staff and leadership must dig deeper and look further to ensure their policies and approach to access and infrastructure includes everyone and prioritizes the least able in much more than words and aspirations.
Michael William McDonald looks into the domesticated use of the groundnut (Sipekne’) by Mi’kmaq people. “Elders in Sipekne’katik were still making bread using grounded Sipekne’ roots right up till the 1980’s. In 1984 Rebecca “Noel” Pictou stated that her Grandmother would save the largest rhizome bulbs she found and then replant them closer to their dwellings along the Shubenacadie River where they would allow them to grow and flower.”
Michael William McDonald’s extensive research into the Clans in the District of Sipekne’katik in the early 1700’s reveals the deep connection between the Mi’kmaq people and the landscape of Mi’kma’ki, the place the Mi’kmaq never ceded and have called home since time began.
Dr. Ingrid Waldron and Dr. Juliet Daniel on a new research project to determine whether there is a link between relatively high rates of cancer among members of Shelburne’s Black community and the nearby dump, and how it will pave the way for further studies on the relationship between environmental racism and chronic diseases.