Protecting wild spaces in Nova Scotia begins with a deeper recognition that our forests, shorelines, wetlands, and fields are not separate from us – they shape our health, our communities, and our future. As pressures from development, climate change, and biodiversity loss continue to grow, the responsibility to care for these places cannot rest with a few – it must be shared by many. The opportunity is right in front of us: through everyday choices, local leadership, and collective action, each of us can play a meaningful role in sustaining the natural systems and wild spaces that sustain us.
Help Protect Wild Spaces in Your Yard, Neighbourhood, Community, or Across the Province
Hope for Wild Spaces embraces two places where nature really needs our care:
1. Protecting and restoring our wild places – the forests, rivers, wetlands, coastlines, and habitats that sustain biodiversity and provides more protection for wildlife.
2. Creating more room for nature where people live; where human and wildlife connect – in our yards, neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces, parks, and communities.
Join us and Nature Champion Hope Swinimer in taking action for wild spaces. Here are some clear actions to get you started:
Hope #1) Find One Place You Can Make Wilder
If every person restored a little bit of natural habitat where they live – either in their year, neighbourhood or community – together we could create a web of wild spaces across Nova Scotia. Learn about the wildlife near you with Hope for Wildlife then get to work with advice from Nature Canada.
Could your community be Nature Canada’s next Bird Friendly City? Learn from the lessons of Bird Friendly Halifax and get started by assessing your community’s bird friendly score.
Already engaged in some kind of nature stewardship? Tell us about it!
Hope #2) Advocate For Public Wilderness Protection
Learn about Nova Scotia’s legal commitment to protecting 20% of lands and waters by 2030, how some provincial legislation doesn’t go far enough to protect wilderness, and how you can take action to protect public wilderness. Help us “Keep It Wild.”
Hope #3) Be A Voice For Nature
Engage your representatives. Schedule a meeting with your councilor, Member of Legislative Assembly, or Member of Parliament. Urge them to take action to protect wild spaces. Join a local group working to protect more wilderness. Need some inspiration? Check out this grassroots how-to guide from our friends at Ecology Action Centre. Check out these letter writing templates!
Hope #4) Support Landscape Level Wilderness Collaborations
We maximize our impact by working together. land trusts, forestry cooperatives, and regional coalitions. By building strategic partnerships with future network allies, this action aims to pool resources, scale up wilderness protection, and secure long-term, legally protected, connected ecosystems across the province. Stay tuned as we engage these organizations.
Join us for the Hope For Wild Spaces kick off at the Hope for Wildlife Open House, August 29th, from 12pm-4pm. Nature Nova Scotia staff and volunteers will be on hand to help visitors find ways of taking action for wild spaces and to connect them with the groups and individuals who can help.