The Tobeatic Wildernes Committee views the use of motorized vehicles in Nova Scotia's Wilderness Areas as a serious threat to their ecological integrity.

TWC makes no distinction between All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and other motorized vehicles, prefering to use the more inclusive term "Off Road Vehicle", or ORV.

In April 2002, TWC researched and published Off Road Vehicles, an extensive 36 page document on the effects of ORVs in sensitive areas, specifically the Tobeatic Wilderness Area. The large number of photos in the report makes it too large to post in PDF format on this website, but CD copies can be provided for those who wish to contact TWC.

Posted here, however, are excerpts fron the ORV Report, specifically Contents, TWC Position, and Recommendations.

Bill 24, The Wilderness Act of Nova Scotia views "wilderness recreation" as a secondary objective under the legislation, of less importance than such primary objectives as (1) maintaining and restoring the integrity of natural processes and biodiversity, (2) the protection of representative examples of natural landscapes and ecosystems, and (3) protecting outstanding, unique, rare and vulnerable natural features and phenomena:

Section 3, subsection (n), of the Wilderness Act states:
3(n) "wilderness recreation" means non-motorized, outdoor recreational activities that have minimal environmental impact, including nature-based tourism;

Contents

Introduction

• TWC Position
• Definition of Wilderness
• Bill 24 Objectives
• Definition of Wilderness Recreation

• ORV Definition
• ORV Types
• Licensed, Unlicensed
• Motorcycle, Snowmobile
• ATV, 3-4 Wheeled
• ATV, 6-8 Wheeled, Tracked
• Boat, PWC, Aircraft, Mountain Bike

• Harvesting and Hunting
• Habitat Modification
  • Vegetation Damage
  • Alien Species
  • Soil Damage
  • Air Pollution
  • Water Pollution
  • DoEL Responsibility
  • Disturbance

• Right to Recreation
• Non-Motorized Users
• Trails
• Noise
• ORV User Conflicts
  • SANS / ATVANS Agreement
  • Trail Conflicts

Safety

• Death and Injury
• Economics and Liabilities

• Industry Advertising
• Mechanized Arms Race
• Servicing ORV Sports

• In Canada
• In the USA

Conclusions

• Drive Through Wilderness

Sources

The Tobeatic Wilderness Committee opposes motorized travel by ORV within the boundaries of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area.

Zero Tolerance for motorized travel within a multi-use wilderness recreational area is the standard rather than the exception, and is the model adopted by the US National Parks Service for their designated Wilderness Areas, and by Canada's National Parks designated Wilderness Areas. The Tobeatic Wilderness Area should enjoy no less a level of protection than that given our National Parks if the Wilderness Areas Protection Act is to have meaning.

The Tobeatic Wilderness Committee believes that the government’s primary objective in the management of our province’s wilderness areas should be the protection of healthy, natural ecosystems and their associated values, including fish and wildlife habitat, riparian areas, scenery, archeological and historic resources, soil, air and water quality, wilderness resources, and wilderness values.

If allowed, ORV use would create an unacceptable degradation of the unique, roadless nature of the majority of the Tobeatic’s land area. TWC sees ORV use as incompatible with efforts to protect the Tobeatic as a wilderness area, and incompatible with the larger objectives and spirit of the NS Government’s Parks and Protected Areas Systems Plan. Allowing ORV use in the Tobeatic will compromise the Shelburne River’s Canadian Heritage River status, and will violate its Management Plan.

In the last few years, ORV use in Nova Scotia has mushroomed, and is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade, causing increasing pressure on areas open to their use. The Parks and Protected Areas Systems Plan was initiated in 1990, at a time when the future extent of ORV use in Nova Scotia was undocumented and of small concern.

The Committee recognizes ORV use as a legitimate sport enjoyed by many Nova Scotians. Opportunities to pursue the sport must be made however, outside the boundaries of the province's wilderness areas, and in a regulated and responsible way. A full 98% of the landmass of Nova Scotia is legally available, with only the owner's permission required, for use by ORVs. Only 2.5% of the province, represented by our two National Parks, is effectively off limits to ORV use. Given the overwhelming amount of Crown and private lands not protected by Bill 24, keeping the Tobeatic Wilderness Area closed to ORV use will represent no significant hardship to ORV users.

Wilderness Areas by definition should have the highest level of protection we can afford them, otherwise they cease to remain wilderness in any sense of the word.

Definition of Wilderness

The Tobeatic Wilderness Committee is dedicated to the following definition of "wilderness" by the Wildlands League and used in the World Wildlife Fund's Endangered Spaces Campaign.

"Wilderness is an area where human activity is deliberately minimized, where non-human forces and forms of life remain virtually undisturbed by such activity. Wilderness is a place where neither the permanent addition of artificial objects, nor the removal of natural objects shall result from human use."

“It is an ecological unit of sufficient size to be essentially self-regulating, and large enough to ensure physical and psychological separation from the human-dominated environment. Excluded from these areas are: roads, permanent structures, mechanized vehicles and equipment, trapping, natural resource extraction, and any form of disturbance which is incompatible with wilderness and wilderness values. “

TWC Recommendations

The Tobeatic Wilderness Committee recommends that:

• the Tobeatic Wilderness Area remain closed to ORV access for recreational purposes.
• due to their relatively recent invention, no argument for ORVs as a historic mode of access to leasehold camps in the TWA can be correctly made. TWC recommends that, in the interim, that leaseholders revert to accessing their leases by traditional means, ie: foot, canoe.
• opportunities for ORV travel be encouraged outside the TWA, on Crown lands classified under the Integrated Resource Management and designated as Industrial (C1) and as Multi-Use (C2), on private lands under land use agreements, on K-Class abandoned public road rights-of-way, on the Trans Canada Trail System, and on other abandoned rail beds.
• as no baseline cataloguing of existing trails was undertaken by the government in 1993, the categorizing of ATV trails existing now into Pre-1993 or Post-1993 cannot be accurately done, and that this distinction therefore has no relevancy and cannot be given legal weight.
• the Indian Fields Road to Silvery Lake be absorbed into the existing boundary of the Tobeatic Wilderness Area and that Upset Falls Bridge at Indian Fields be designated as an official trail head for the southern portion of the TWA; that a steel gate be placed on the western end of the bridge and that the gate be under the control of the Protected Areas Division; and that access be limited to Division Staff for management purposes.
• those found in violation of this policy be subject to forfeiture of their ORV immediately, and be subject to a fine.
• as the issue of ORV access is argued to be inseparable from the issue of access to camp leases, that no current leases be renewed, as of 2002, allowing them to expire as they come due, and that no new leases be issued.
• as an incentive for the earlier retirement of leases, the Department undertake an initiative to exchange current leaseholds for waterfront Crown lands of equal value or potential outside the TWA, in "fee simple", and at no expense to the leaseholder, and that this initiative apply only to those leaseholders who agree to relinquish their leaseholds before their lease expiration date.
• a similar initiative be undertaken to retire private inholdings in exchange for Crown lands of equal value or potential outside the TWA, and that in an effort to retire persistent inholding titles, expropriation be considered, but as a last resort.

TWC is of the opinion that if allowed for any reason, interim or otherwise, ORV use within the Tobeatic Wilderness Area will lead to its eventual degradation and loss as the Maritime's last true wilderness.