Miners fight Newfoundland parks

Newfoundland’s mining industry is beginning to look askance at the province’s drive to protect more Crown land from mineral and other forms of economic development.

The industry is afraid the province may soon join the federal government in a bid to turn at least 10% of its land mass into parks, ecological reserves and other protected areas. Currently, about 2% of the prov- ince enjoys protection from all forms of economic activity.

“If you take out 10% of the province for ecological reserves, parks or whatever, that’s 10% of the province we don’t have in which to look for mines,” said Peter Dimmell, president of the province’s main mining industry lobby group, Newfoundland and Labrador Explorationists.

“While there is a lot of sympathy for the environment in the mining industry, I think one of the problems we see with the outright protection or sequestering of public lands is that when you make a wilderness or ecological reserve, what you do is effectively stop exploration in that area,” he added. “We have to find a mine where it is. We cannot take that mine and move it someplace else. I mean, either a mine is there or it’s not.”

Earlier this spring, the province declared a 3,500-square-km tract of land on the southern part of the island, known as the Bay du Nord Wilderness Area, free from economic development.

The province has only one other so-called wilderness area, the 1,070-square-km Avalon Wilderness reserve located on the southeastern part of the island. There are eight ecological reserves, each several square kilometres in size, and five provisional sites yet to receive full protection from cabinet. There is also a large scattering of provincial parks across the province.

“The system has a potential for growing, there’s no question about that,” said Newfoundland’s director of parks, Dan Hustins, who freely admits he would like to see more land protected from economic development.

“We hope that it will grow to be a bit larger. These lands represent the best of the natural environment, our own natural heritage. We talk so much about protecting our cultural way of life and cultural heritage. This is a program to protect our natural heritage before it’s lost, destroyed or developed.”

However, to Dimmell’s way of thinking, there is a big hole in that argument.

“The only way you can go in and enjoy those areas is if you have the leisure time and affluence to do it,” he countered. “And the only way we can have that is to have some sort of economic activity. If we limit the potential of economic activity, we also limit the use of these things. So I think it’s a balance-type thing.”

Despite their differences, the province’s nature lovers and miners haven’t been totally unable to make compromises.

Earlier this spring when the province announced the new Bay du Nord wilderness reserve, it simultaneously announced that “controlled” mineral exploration could take place at the nearby Middle Ridge Wilderness Area. That tract of land is said to be high in mineral potential.

Craig Westcott is a freelance writer in St. John’s.