There are some easy ways that a municipality can get more involved in species at risk, wildlife, and habitat conservation and recovery.  These do not require any significant investment of time or resources, but can be very important in assisting in efforts to conserve species and habitats.  These include: increased awareness, communicating messages to developers, adopting a process for flagging projects that impact wildlife, contacting the Regional Biologist when unsure of impacts on wildlife, contacting Species at Risk Recovery Teams, and explore existing municipal tools and other potential roles.   Each of these six ways to get involved is described in turn below.

For more information on other tools and roles that municipalities can play:
Please view PDF document titled: "A Guide to Municipal Tools Supporting Wildlife Species and Habitat Stewardship in Nova Scotia".  Also please visit the Resources Page of this website.

Increase Awareness
A simple action that a municipality can take to assist with conservation is to try and increase awareness of species at risk, wildlife, and habitat issues among municipal council and staff.  Since many municipalities had not been approached or engaged formally in the conservation of wildlife up until this point appropriate information may not have been readily available.  This document, particularly the background information contained in Part I and the Appendices, should provide municipalities with a solid overview of species at risk and wildlife conservation issues in NS.  One of the key approached to furthering conservation of wildlife is Education and Stewardship (see Table 4) and something as simple as ensuring that staff and councils are informed can contribute considerably to making decisions and choices that can reduce or eliminate negative impacts on wildlife species. 

Communicate with Developers
Whenever possible, municipalities should communicate with developers to encourage awareness and action with respect to the early consideration of species at risk and habitats.  The case can be made to developers for the importance of the proactive consideration of wildlife and their habitats in land use planning and development.  There are a number of reasons to consider wildlife and their habitats early in the development process, including the business advantages, legal requirements, and improved community support.  If a wildlife concern is identified after a development is underway it can result in more costs and effort than if a proactive approach were taken.  A handout outlining these reasons in more detail is included in Appendix 5 and can be reproduced by municipalities for distribution to developers or other concerned citizens.

Adopt a Process for ‘Flagging’ Properties
Municipalities could adopt the process outlined here for ‘flagging’ properties where proposed projects or activities could negatively impact on species at risk, wildlife, or habitats.  Instances have occurred in NS where a developers were well underway only to realize that they were about to build in an area where a legally protected species was located.  Mitigation measures must then be taken, and at such a late stage, can result in considerable cost and inconvenience to the developer.  If a municipality could assist in ‘flagging’ potential species at risk conflicts early in the permitting and approval process, this could be very beneficial for all parties.

There are several situations where this process could be adopted such as: subdivision proposals, re-zoning applications, development permits, road construction proposals, the sale of land/property (tax sales, surplus land), as well as other activities that would alter the landscape.  The flow chart in Figure 1 illustrates the process for flagging properties.  The process should not be a burden to any current municipal approval process.   Also, we are exploring the possibility of other agencies, other than municipalities, also adopting this process.

The process, in general, would involve using the provincial ‘Significant Species and Habitat Database’ (‘Sighab’) in a geographic information system (GIS) program, overlaying proposed development or project locations to determine if projects and wildlife species locations overlap.  If development overlaps or is in close proximity to significant habitat, the next step would be to seek assistance from the NS DNR Regional Biologist responsible for your area of the province (see Appendix 4 for contact information).  The ‘Sighab’ Database referred to above is a provincial database that is available online for all municipalities.  Appendix 3 has a more detailed explanation of the database and how to access it. 

 

 

 

 

                                                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. Flow diagram illustrating the steps in the process for identifying and ‘flagging’ properties where development or other activities could result in negative impacts on wildlife species or their habitats. (See Contact Us page for contact information for NS DNR Regional Biologists).