Reserve Planning on Private Land Holdings of the Forestry Company Stora Port Hawsbury Limited: Cape Breton Island and Eastern Mainland Nova Scotia

Abstract

The forestry company, Stora Port Hawkesbury Limited, owns 280 properties throughout Cape Breton Island and eastern mainland Nova Scotia with a total cumulative area of 24 590 ha. This study utilized a coarse filter analysis to determine which of these land holdings support representative and outstanding natural features compatible with the creation of a system of privately-owned nature reserves. Aerial photographs were used to document each property. Approximately 35% of the private land holdings were caught by the coarse filter to be considered candidate protected sites. Significant features identified include old-growth forests, wetlands, ravines, headwaters, lakeshores, coastlines, lagoons, talus slopes, forested floodplains, ephemeral rivers, oxbow lakes, riparian zones, and mountain barrens. Other studies have subdivided Nova Scotia into a series of 80 distinct natural landscape units, most of which have few or no protected areas. A Stora-owned system of nature reserves could help fill significant representation gaps within the province-wide system of protected areas, since nearly three-quarters of landscape units containing Stora properties are inadequately represented with existing protected sites. Other Stora-owned properties are located along significant waterways or positioned adjacent to larger existing protected areas. Later stages of this project will field-verify interpretations of the coarse filter analysis and further refine the list of candidate protected sites presented here.