Carters Beach has become increasingly popular in recent years.
Carters Beach in southeastern Nova Scotia will become a provincial park.
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One of the ranges considered among the Nova Scotia's most beautiful beach will become a provincial park.
The Nova Scotia Department of Natural and Renewable Resources announced Wednesday that the beach Carters, located near Port Mouton in the southeast of the province, will receive provincial park designation.
This means that Carters Beach and several islands off it — such as the Jackies Islands and the Spectacle Islands — will be managed as a natural park, to protect its unique ecosystem and its heritage importance.
This beach of sand and dunes is also surrounded by salt marshes. It is a nesting area for piping plovers, an endangered bird species (New window). There are also moss, lichen and orchids whose survival is precarious.
In recent years, this beach has been a bit of a victim of its own success .
A hot day at Carters Beach, summer 2020.
Port Mouton resident Emily Robinson says it used to be a hidden gem known mostly to locals, but it's no longer a local secret.
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In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, traffic increased significantly at Carters Beach. As there is no infrastructure there, residents have complained that these visitors leave trash or damage the fragile dunes by climbing them.
At Carters Beach, visitors are asked not to damage the dunes. (File photo)
Nancy McBay is one of the residents who has added their voice to the chorus of complaints in recent years. She deplores the fact that people come to relieve themselves on the dunes. In addition, she points out that with around 500 people on the best summer days, there are vehicles parked haphazardly on the road.
We believe everyone should have the right to come to Carters Beach. We just want it to be in reasonable numbers so that the beach is not destroyed, she said.
When the weather is nice, there are long lines of vehicles on the normally quiet road near Carters Beach, as seen on this photo taken in the summer of 2020.
Nancy McBay is not delighted with the government's approach. She is not sure whether making Carters Beach a provincial park will ensure its protection.
It looks like an ad for a new restaurant, she said in an interview Thursday. I think their ideas are going to cause more problems in the short term, and they don't want to hear it.
Emily Robinson, who works at a local resort and lives close to the beach, disagrees. We can't have too much tourism in our beautiful province, she says.
Carters Beach.
As for visitors, they are not all disrespectful. Vern MacGregor, a Halifax resident I met at Carters Beach, where he was hiking, is a regular who wants to leave his mark as little as possible.
I would like the beach to remain intact, he confided. Like a nature reserve. I think the fact that it becomes a provincial park will help protect it.
A piping plover and its chicks. (Archive photo)
The provincial government promises interpretive signs and trails, which will help visitors understand, and therefore respect the ecological and cultural importance of these places.
Development of this provincial park on 97 hectares of Crown land is to begin shortly, according to the province.
According to the report by Paul Légère and with information from < em>CBC