Is this really 2017? Canada in 2017?
Update Nov 25: Cape Breton First Nations protest mining on Kellys Mountain (CTV News; 3min. video)
Update Nov 21: MANS is on a roll…Mining Association wants access to Pugwash Estuary, Chronicle Herald, Nov 21, 2017 “The Mining Association of Nova Scotia contends the province’s protected spaces plan is harming Cumberland County’s economy.” View *comment by a geologist
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From the Nova Scotia Envioronment/Protected Areas description of the Kluscap Wilderness Area:
Kluscap Wilderness Area protects much of the northern part of Kluscap (“Kellys”) Mountain, between St. Anns Bay and Great Bras d’Or. It is a striking landscape, where steep forested slopes rise sharply out of the sea to a narrow plateau of 300 or more metres elevation.Kluscap Wilderness Area
NSE Protected Areas Photo
Click on photo to go to nse/protectedareas>Kluscap Wilderness AreaKluscap Mountain is a sacred Mi’kmaq site. It is said that the great prophet Kluscap (or “Glooscap”) once dwelled in the ocean-side cave near Cape Dauphin, at the northern tip of the wilderness area, and will one day return. The lore and mystery of the cave, known locally as the “Fairy Hole,” coupled with outstanding coastal scenery, attracts visitors who arrive by informal trail or by sea.
MANS (Mining Association of Nova Scotia) does not see it that way, according to a report in the Cape Breton Post (Between a rock and a sacred place on Kellys Mountain, CB Post Nov 19, 2017):
Sean Kirby, executive director of the Mining Association of Nova Scotia, said the Kellys Mountain project has the potential to create 80 direct jobs for 50 years or more…if it weren’t for the protected areas totally overlapping it”.
I probably shouldn’t use the term ‘environmental racism’ when I think about this particular MANS effort but it did come to mind. (It wasn’t the Halifax Citadel they were proposing to mine.)
Said Rod Googoo, chief of Waycobah First Nation:
We, the Mi’kmaq people, we would never dare enter into any place which is considered sacred by any other race — whether it be a temple, whether it be a church, whether it be a mosque — and disrespect it, or deface it, or do something that’s taboo.
Chief Googoo spoke for a very solid majority of Nova Scotians when he said:
…extracting resources from the land because it creates jobs is wrong. It really doesn’t because all it does is make some corporations very rich, and it’s not leaving anything for Cape Breton, really…
That can’t continue on, this tradeoff of jobs for the sake of overlooking what we believe in. And it’s coming to that point now all across Canada. It’s not only native people — everybody is getting tired of it. Cape Breton is a beautiful, beautiful piece of real estate — gorgeous — we should be exploiting the natural beauty of the island as opposed to exploiting the resources. What do we have left in Cape Breton, really? There’s nothing much left. All we have is natural beauty, and then once you start digging up resources, what do we have left then? What’s going to happen once everything that’s in the ground is extracted? There’s nothing left. There’s nothing in the oceans. There’s no more trees to cut down. No more gold or oil? What’s going to happen then? What do we have left? Nothing.”
View Between a rock and a sacred place on Kellys Mountain
Cape Breton Post, Nov. 19, 2017
Thank you Chief Rod Googoo
Thank you Cape Breton Post
Thank you Protected Areas
Thank you NSDNR for stating clearly that
Protected Areas will remain out-of-bounds to mining.
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For more on the efforts MANS is taking to discredit mining in Nova Scotia:
- MANS proposal to swap mines and protected area in Nova Scotia hardly dead in the water (Post, Nov 15, 2017)
- COMMENTARY: Save protected areas from mining by Raymond Plourde in Chronicle Herald, Nov 10, 2017)
- Ground Zero: Mining companies (& others) want the “low hanging fruit” in Nova Scotia’s Protected Areas (Post Nov 7, 2017)
- Mining Association wants access to protected areas (Chronicle Herald Nov 4, 2017)
- A Better Balance – How we can Protect Jobs and Land for Nova Scotians (MANS, no date)
- MANS letters to the editor (in Cape Breton Post Oct 30, 2017 & Chronicle Herald Oct 28, 2017)
- Now NS Mining Association blames Parks & Protected Areas for economic woes (Post Dec 19, 2016)
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*KA to David P: This comment is in relationship to MANS and copper deposit near Pugwash. See page 3 of the enclosed link. https://novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/pubs/mu/muv25n4.pdf The Environmental community needs to remind the Province that “NO” means “NO”. Pretty hard to replicate ecological values that are based on factors that may be unique to an area, that create a diversity of environments, and that support flora and fauna that may not be found elsewhere. Tidal estuary, salt dome, carbonates in bedrock, microclimate……… If the area was not already “protected” I cannot fathom why MANS would try to make a “case” for developing a mine due to its proximity to the estuary. Noranda Exploration did a drilling program south of Tatamagouche in the late 60’s and there was a brief flurry of copper mining in Wentworth in the early 1900’s(?). Deposits have never proven to be economically viable. Will have to do some more digging, if memory serves me right uranium is sometimes associated with the copper concretions in this type of deposit. As far as I know there still is a moratorium related to mining uranium in NS.