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No Trespassing. Private Road. No Parking.
These are the signs that are more and more frequently seen along Nova Scotia’s coastline. As Canadians access the shore for recreation, science, or even just to take in the natural beauty of the coast, they are being increasingly met with physical barriers to the beach, few options to park or use public transportation to get to the coast, and problems with litter and marine debris in the areas they can access.
Private property ownership dominates Nova Scotia’s coastline, and while the public wants access, property owners also want to enjoy privacy and avoid the degradation of their land. In other words, in a province known as Canada’s Ocean Playground, people are increasingly asking – a playground for who?
In Nova Scotia, we have a right to be on the coastline below the high water mark, but no protected right to get there. But should we? Right of Way is a podcast that explores the issue of coastal access in Nova Scotia (and Canada more broadly) through the stories of property owners, communities, scientists, policy makers, environmental activists, surfers, hikers, and more. Join us weekly for new episodes.
Right of Way is recorded, produced, and hosted by Nicolas Winkler (www.nicolaswinkler.com) and Hannah Harrison (www.hannahharrison.ca). Funding for this podcast is generously provided by the Royal Canadian Geographic Society (www.rcgs.org) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca). Podcast artwork by Laura Bonga (@bongas.art). Sound editing by Podstarter (www.podstarter.io). Learn more by visiting www.coastalaccessproject.com.
RightOfWay_S1E1
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coastal, courts, nova scotia, property owner, access, property, people, land, public, beach, high watermark, easement, liability, act, coastline, podcast, province, law, episode, private property owners
SPEAKERS
Nicolas Winkler, Kristina Boerder, Samuel Eisner, Hannah Harrison, Mike Kofahl
Hannah Harrison 00:03
This podcast was recorded in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq People. We are all treaty people. Who owns Nova Scotia East Coast Nova Scotia has coastline largely belongs to private property owners above the ordinary high watermark. The most frequently cited number and the most recent one that we could find comes from a 2009 document called the State of Nova Scotia's Coast report. It describes 87% of Nova Scotia has coastline property as privately owned. The government of Nova Scotia says that our province has approximately 13,000 kilometers of coastline, which means just under 1700 kilometers is not privately owned. But this number is deceiving. That 1700 kilometers a property may not actually be usable for the public that may be inaccessible due to safety risks. For example, if the Department of National Defense has exercises there, or it may be the coastline of a small island that is inaccessible except by boat, or they could represent very inaccessible or remote lands to which there is no public trail. In other words, access on paper may not actually be quality or reasonable access on the ground, and the quality of access can vary considerably.
Nicolas Winkler 01:32
This means that in a province that calls itself Canada's ocean playground, opportunities to actually get to the coast and enjoy the public spaces are actually pretty limited and not available to everyone. And formal access across private property is not uncommon, but it can sometimes lead to confrontations confusion and ugly conflicts. More and more we're hearing people ask: whose playground is it really?
Hannah Harrison 02:00
Welcome to Right of Way, a podcast about how Nova Scotians get to and use the coast. I'm your host Hannah Harrison and I work as a researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Nicolas Winkler 02:11
And I'm your other host Nicholas Winkler. I'm an ocean photographer and filmmaker.
Hannah Harrison 02:22
This podcast is about Nova Scotia, Canada's Ocean Playground.
Nicolas Winkler 02:27
Or more specifically about how Nova Scotians and visitors to our province access their coastline for all the many reasons that people want to get to the sea.
Hannah Harrison 02:50
Nic and I both grew up in places outside of Nova Scotia, where having access to beaches or to the ocean itself is of paramount importance for recreation, for fishing or even just to launch a boat. This means we are both comfortable ways but we each separately chose to live in Nova Scotia because we value being close to the ocean and the maritime lifestyle that comes with it.
Nicolas Winkler 03:13
I grew up in the Caribbean and moved to Nova Scotia about 10 years ago, and I was excited for the opportunity to enjoy the underwater world that surrounds our province. But I was surprised to find that actually getting to the water in a way that was both legal and safe was actually quite challenging. Public Access Points are relatively rare compared to the length of our coastlines.
Hannah Harrison 03:32
I grew up in Alaska and came to Nova Scotia about two years ago, but I had the same realization as Nic; reliable access to the coastline is kind of tough. As Nic and I got to talking about this challenge, we saw pretty quickly that we are not the only people running up against the coastal access problem. We are both storytellers and our normal jobs, me as a social scientist, and Nic as a visual media producer. We've made this podcast as a way to tell some of the stories of coastal access in Nova Scotia. As it turns out, this issue is complicated and includes a lot of legal social, environmental factors. And perhaps above all, it's a really personal matter to the people involved. So
Nicolas Winkler 04:15
in this series, we'll be bringing stories from the wide range of Nova Scotians from divers to hikers and surfers, to property owners, community members, elected officials, to NGOs and others who are impacted by the issue of coastal access.
Hannah Harrison 04:28
But we're gonna start off with a group that you might not expect.
Nicolas Winkler 04:31
Bring in the lawyers.
Samuel Eisner 04:40
Hi, I'm Samuel Eisner. I'm a third year law student at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University in Halifax. I have been doing some research in coastal access issues around the law for about almost two years now. I started working in September for Mike Kofahl as part of a pro-bono research project with East Coast environmental law.
Mike Kofahl 05:02
Hi, I'm Michael Kofahl. I'm a staff lawyer East Coast environmental law. I started working on coastal access issues when the province announced a coastal protection act. And so we had looked at the relationship with coastal protection and coastal access back in 2018. And I've kind of always had it as a side project since and they've been working with partners like the Ecology Action Center to understand limitations and the ways we can bolster coastal access and those contracts.
Nicolas Winkler 05:36
So why start with the law. As it turns out jurisdiction over who owns property and who has decision making power over access is a pretty fundamental issue. It helps us understand how coastal access problems are playing out across Nova Scotia.
Hannah Harrison 05:49
We're spending time on this now in our first episode, because how the law and the courts deal with coastal access is essential to some of the more sensitive stories we're going to share with you later. That said, we do our best in this episode to help make some of the more complicated legal ideas easy to understand. Now before we get into this discussion, we need to give you just a few more warnings first, our guests have made every effort to ensure that the information in this episode is accurate at the date of recording. The comments made in this episode do not constitute legal advice, and it is not intended to replace or supersede any regulation or guidance put forward by officials. Any of the legislation, policy or legal interpretations discussed in this episode may have changed by the time you hear them. Any illegal information provided here is done so for the purpose of discussion and education only.
Nicolas Winkler 06:38
We would also like to acknowledge that this system of law and rights we're discussing today are not the original laws of this land. Today, Canada is a parliamentary democracy and notions of private versus public property stem from this system of governance that we have partially inherited from the British crown. And that has contributed significantly to the dispossession of lands from indigenous peoples, the original laws and ways of relating to land and water Nova Scotia, also known as Mi'kma'ki, are those of the Mi'kmaq People. With that context in mind, the details you'll hear in this episode deals with the system of colonial law and land ownership under the crown in which individuals and institutions may possess and control lands. So back to our guests, Sam and Mike have each been working on legal issues surrounding coastal access, and we invited them on to help us understand a key question just who actually owns the coast.
Mike Kofahl 07:31
So Nova Scotia responsibility for managing the coasts is actually shared between the provincial federal and municipal governments. And there's also indigenous jurisdiction to consider. In most cases, the provincial government has responsibility over crown lands from the ordinary low watermark inward, and then the area between the high watermark and the low watermark is considered provincial Crown land. So just thinking about the definition of the high watermark, that's essentially kind of the maximum average height that the water would come up onto the shoreline. And the reverse is true for the low watermark. So it's not necessarily a technical definition, although there is a technical definition in Nova Scotia under the land surveyors Act.
Nicolas Winkler 08:17
Now Mike uses an interesting term here, ordinary high water and ordinary low watermarks.
Hannah Harrison 08:18
We looked up that land surveyors act definition, they describe an ordinary high watermark as, "For tidal waters. The mark on the seashore reached by the average of the mean high tides of the sea between the spring and neap tides" - a neap tide being a tide that occurs seven days after spring tide - "And this is an each quarter of a lunar revolution during the year excluding only extraordinary catastrophes or overflows." Fair to say, a little bit of a mouthful.
Nicolas Winkler 08:55
The beaches act in Nova Scotia has a similar provision. Only there instead of ordinary high water and low water marks, the Act refers to mean high and low watermarks, but the definition is essentially the same.
Hannah Harrison 09:08
Now you might be wondering, why does this issue of ordinary or mean high and low water matter?
Nicolas Winkler 09:14
This matters because what the average person may observe as the high tide line during a day trip to the beach may not actually be the true high watermark. Remember, that mark is an average And though there may be physical features in the landscape that help us see it, This is Nova Scotia. Our coastline see big storms, big tides and erosion that can make it really hard to tell with the naked eye just where that ordinary high or ordinary low watermark really is.
Hannah Harrison 09:37
And that's a challenge because sometimes it's hard to tell where public space ends and private space begins. That strip of Crown provincial land that Mike mentioned is the space along our coastlines that generally speaking is open to the public. That's the part that through crown stewardship belongs to everyone. Now, there may be occasional exceptions to this like pre Confederation water lots or indigenous territories, which we're not going to dive into here. But that space is special, it's the place we can all use to enjoy the coastlines and access the water. But importantly, while that lateral strip of land along the coast may be public, the lands inland of that Crown land may not be.
Nicolas Winkler 10:17
And that is really the crux of the coastal access problem in Nova Scotia. And at the heart of the questions we're asking in this podcast. Many people want to get to that Crown land, but they can do so without going through someone's private land above the high watermark. So what happens then? Do people have a right to get to Crown land?
Samuel Eisner 10:42
The short answer is not really. So like Mike explained coastal land that is on the seaward side of the mean high watermark is what's considered the beach. It's current land, and that is land that the public has a right to walk on and enjoy the space. The beaches act is what makes this land a beach. And it explains that the beaches in Nova Scotia are dedicated in perpetuity to the Benefit Education enjoyment of present and future generations of Nova Scotians. And that act is meant to protect and regulate activities that take place on the beach. And so while in most cases, as with any Crown land, members of the public are allowed to enter on, explore and enjoy it without the need for any license. As long as they leave it in its natural state. You don't have a positive right to access that land through land, you don't have a right to be on.
Nicolas Winkler 11:43
So a quick note here, when Sam says Beach, he isn't just talking about nicely sloping sandy beaches. By definition, a beach is just what we call the land between the ordinary high and low watermarks, no sand required. That said, you have a right to be on the beach, but not to get to the beach. And this access is made even more complicated in situations where erosion or something else blocks a historically used path to a beach. We asked him and Mike, there were any examples of this issue playing out in Nova Scotia is courts.
Samuel Eisner 12:12
This case that was decided just over two years ago now, Lynn v. Nova Scotia. What this case was decided on was that a home owner had built a retaining wall. And after some erosion just the year after members of the public who had used and access this place called James beach. Notice that the retaining wall was blocking their access to the beach when the tide was high, and that there was some recent construction taking place. And so these members of the public they contacted what is now the Department of Natural Resources and renewables. And they essentially lodged a complaint saying that some illegal activity had been taking place. So what the department minister did was they had their employees and surveyors assess the situation, they determined that the work taking place was above the mean high watermark and that it was not illegal. And so the minister essentially just dismissed the complaint. From that point, these members of the public, they essentially sued the government saying that their decision to dismiss their complaint was illegal, the court did decide against them. And the reason why was because what they found was that the surveyors had, in fact gone, they had done surveys, they had gone a few times to check out the work. The court did not decide whether the actual work had or had not taken place over the high watermark, what they decided was that it was reasonable for the government to rely on their experts.
Hannah Harrison 13:49
What's really interesting about this case is that in making their judgment, the court did consider whether Nova Scotians should have access to the coast. But as Sam quotes from the case, they had to:
Samuel Eisner 14:00
"balance those considerations against the private property rights of the homeowners, and the relevant statutory provisions of the beaches act to the Crown Lands Act, and found that it was reasonable for the Minister to allow this work to take place."
Hannah Harrison 14:14
In other words, the people who brought the lawsuit are not found to have a higher right to access the beach than the property owners did to build their seawall. Here's Mike Kofahl again.
Mike Kofahl 14:25
I think it's really interesting, because I mean, essentially, what this dispute really isn't it seems like most coastal access disputes are essentially trying to strike a balance between private property owners which are quite protected in our legal system, at least the colonial legal system, and the public's interest in accessing the coast and being on the coast and being in those spaces. So it's really trying to balance those out and it tends to favor those private property owners because they're so entrenched in our legal system and the way we view property and land.
Nicolas Winkler 15:03
I think Mike and Sam hit on a couple of really important issues here, first of the courts of balancing this issue of rights of private property owners and the benefit of the public. And second, courts may be a rather rigid place to consider the issues of access.
Hannah Harrison 15:16
Yeah, I once had someone tell me that courts don't do humanity, democracy or science very well, but they do deal well in facts. Unfortunately, the facts of a case around coastal access may not ultimately reflect the underlying human emotions or needs that drive a case into the court in the first place.
Samuel Eisner 15:35
Honestly, the best way to protect coastal access is to avoid the courts entirely. Courts are really expensive. All of the things that happen in them, you never really know what's going to happen. It's very, very expensive to sue anyone or especially the government, if you are trying to have the law recognized. So the best way to protect coastal access in Nova Scotia right now would be by the provincial or municipal governments buying up land exercising their powers under the beaches act, ensuring that there are designated beaches that Nova Scotians can access and paying attention to this, especially in areas that are more rural areas that are historically underserved.
Nicolas Winkler 16:19
Now honestly, this may sound like bad news for people who are worried about coastal access, designating beaches on the beaches Act means that the government must prioritize the need for coastal access. So we asked Sam and Mike if there any other ways that excess might occur.
Samuel Eisner 16:32
Another way over private land is to have what's called a public right of way easement. And the best way that that can be done is by expressly writing it into the deed. It's a legal instrument that exists to benefit one property owners property by constraining the property rights of another person's property.
Hannah Harrison 16:52
Sam mentions two important things here, the right of way where if made under the right provisions would allow public access across otherwise non public land and the right of exclusion, which is essentially a right related to private property ownership that allows a person to prevent other people from entering their property.
Nicolas Winkler 17:10
A public easement allows a member of the public to cross privately on land, which essentially takes away the right of the property owner to exercise their right of exclusion to the public for whatever part of the property is included in that easement. And as it happens, there is a recent case in Nova Scotia courts that deals with this issue in an area locally known as silversands beach.
Samuel Eisner 17:30
So this was actually a little bit of a famous case, that was quite recent called Halifax Regional Municipality V. Rhyno. This involved exactly that you had an express easement that existed and it was a public right of way over private property. The private property owner had thought that the right of way had eroded away on their property, and they wanted to try to exercise their right of exclusion. So they built a big gate, and they blocked people from being able to access the beach through their property. Then Halifax sued the property owner because they disagreed they thought that the easement still existed, and the judge decided in favor of the municipality. The judge said that the easement had not been eroded, it existed over the entire property, and that the property owner had to allow members of the public to access the beach.
Hannah Harrison 18:39
Now that case may sound fairly straightforward, easements were clearly written into the deeds and a court was able to decide whether they still applied after erosion had occurred. But Nova Scotia has a long history of people using coastal areas, and land ownership documents are sometimes old or less formal than today's standards, and are not so clear in where parcels begin or end, or whether neighboring coastal users have been allowed to cross them in the past.
Nicolas Winkler 19:04
And later episodes of this podcast, you're going to hear some stories of where longstanding use of the coast say on a path or trail or other type of informal arrangement, certainly, but up against more modern land ownership rules and values. In those cases, we've heard people discuss what's called prescriptive easement. So we asked Mike and Sam if they could explain what that means.
Samuel Eisner 19:23
Express easements like the ones that I talked about are written into a deed, they are the easiest to enforce because there's a written document that the court can reference, and it'll be dated. All of this is ways that we can very easily figure out who has which rights. But the law does recognize ways that easements can exist even if they are not written down, based on generally the history of the use of the land and the conduct of the landowners. Prescriptive easements are one of those ways, and in many jurisdictions, the courts are very hesitant to recognize a person stripped of rights, many provinces and the federal government have more or less outlawed they've written them out of existence. However, it is possible still to recognize the existence of a prescriptive easement, though it is very hard to prove.
Hannah Harrison 20:15
Now when Sam says they are difficult to prove what he means is that people who want to demonstrate a case for a prescriptive easement and the courts may have a very tough road ahead in terms of finding and presenting acceptable evidence to back up their claim of historic use of a property.
Samuel Eisner 20:30
The most difficult part of this is the evidence to have a court recognize a prescriptive easement, you need to acquire evidence of 20 years of continuous and notorious use, where it can be assumed that everyone in the vicinity the property owner, they would have known this was happening for 20 years, and it is incredibly expensive to do this.
Nicolas Winkler 20:54
Demonstrating sufficient history of use to satisfy the conditions of a prescriptive easement for a court is difficult. It may involve getting written sworn affidavits from the community survey data, plus the time and energy it takes to hire lawyers and go through the court system. And if you lose, well bring in such a case, you may be required to pay the court expenses of the defendants. So a potentially risky, very expensive and time consuming endeavor.
Hannah Harrison 21:18
In our research for this podcast, we've noticed that many of these conflicts about access come up when a property owner stops allowing people to cross their property as they may have historically done. From what we've seen. This often occurs after a piece of coastal property changes hands in a new owner who is less familiar with the norms or historic practices if a community exercises their right to exclude. But it does raise the question. If prescriptive rights litigation is expensive and difficult and coastal property is also becoming more and more expensive. Does this mean that the coastlines of Canada's ocean playground are really only available to a few.
Nicolas Winkler 21:55
But there's another side to that story. In speaking to landowners for this podcast, we often hear they're exercising their right to exclude because they are worried about liability that may fall to them if someone were to get hurt crossing their property, or maybe they want privacy. And honestly, that makes a lot of sense to me. I might also worry if my community wanted to cross my property on a regular basis. And I might not want the whole neighborhood trot in my living room windows. Similarly, we've heard property owners share concerns about the public damaging their property or leaving little behind. We asked Mike to walk us through the ins and outs of liability.
Mike Kofahl 22:31
So when we're thinking about liability, I think it's good to start and think really broadly about different types of legal liability that are associated with coastal access. So first thinking about civil liability, which is essentially responsibility for damage or injury that occurs. And in the case of coastal access, that damage or injury might occur on someone's property, or it can occur as a result of someone restricting access to property. For example, if a person enters on the coastal property gets hurt, they could sue the property owner. But on the flip side, if a person enters a coastal property and causes damage, the property owner could sue them. So that kind of really general terms. There's also this law in Nova Scotia called the occupiers Liability Act, which essentially means that someone who owns a property or someone who is renting or leasing a property but has control of that property has a certain duty to prevent injury to others when they come onto the land. I think one of the really common examples is if you're inviting someone onto your property in the winter, and there's ice and you don't put salt down and they slip and they get injured. That's like one of the really common examples. So you can imagine like if there's a path through the through your property that leads to a high cliff side, you may be having some warning signs would negate some of the liability there. There are also certain situations where someone is presumed just to be taking on the risk. So in those cases, there wouldn't be liability situation where someone is just deemed to be assuming that risk, they include vacant or undeveloped Berlind and recreational trails as well. So as long as they're reasonably marriage. So those are some of those examples. And then there's other laws that can also deal with that liability. And one that I think is really kind of unique and maybe really important is the Nova Scotia trails act. And the purpose of the Nova Scotia trails act is essentially to designate trails both on public and private land. In cases of private land, you need the private property owners consent. And then the other purpose of the act is to limit liability. So if you're on a trail that's been designated on the trails act, you actually the property owner actually doesn't have liability for any of the risks because it's presumed that that person's using the trailer under that act, so you could actually negate that. So it's a really interesting tool but essentially to talk.
Hannah Harrison 25:05
So I think my takeaway here is that liability is really complex, and there is no one understanding of liability that's going to apply to every issue. However, Mike's examples of the Trails Act are really intriguing, and they may be a useful way that property owners who are interested in offering access could mitigate some of their liability.
Nicolas Winkler 25:25
Now, the flip side of this, there are some acts of do currently exist within Nova Scotia law that allow for access, though they are sometimes poorly understood by the public. One example we hear frequently in the making of this podcast is the Angling Act.
Hannah Harrison 25:37
Now in case you haven't read this act lately, here's the relevant part. "Any resident of the province shall have the right to go on foot along the banks of any river stream or lake upon and across any uncultivated lands and crown lands, for the purpose of lawfully fishing with rod and line and such rivers, streams or lakes." Now, you may have caught the mention of river stream or lake in there, and notably, not the seashore.
Mike Kofahl 26:04
No, the angling Act does not apply to marine waters. And the terminology is essentially greater right for a resident of the province to go along the banks of a river stream or lake. And as you mentioned, uncultivated land. So you wouldn't be able to go across someone who's you know, farmed land or something like that.
Nicolas Winkler 26:22
So bad news for anglers who hope to use this act allow them to access marine coastlines. But the Act does hinder the idea that access to some natural resources, like fishable waters is important in society and can be protected by law.
Mike Kofahl 26:36
The right to fish is something goes really far back almost as far back as property rights from the English system. And it's really this idea that people should be able to make use of that natural resources, particularly the fish. So it's this public right to use resources. So
Hannah Harrison 26:54
Could there be other ways that the law could allow for coastal access in a similar way to how we value access to fishing opportunities, such as in the angling Act?
Samuel Eisner 27:03
The court does play with these values. If you remember back to that very first case that I talked about...
Nicolas Winkler 27:09
if you don't quite remember, that was a Lynn v. Nova Scotia judicial review case mentioned at the top of the episode.
Samuel Eisner 27:14
Even though it was decided in favor of the property owner, the judge, she's very clear that there is this benefit that people have in being able to access coastal areas that kind of goes above what would normally exist for other kinds of Crown land, even if they don't have formal legal recognition. You know, there is this kind of understanding that this is something that's really important, it is causing conflict, and it is causing disputes between different stakeholders. The law is kind of recognizing it. But what you run into is these kind of inherent problems of trying to get the courts to recognize this from the position of kind of a public litigant. You're kind of almost fighting against a system that really doesn't want you to fight against it. And it's hard to convince a judge to take away someone's private property rights when that person is right there in front of the judge telling the judge not to do that.
Nicolas Winkler 28:14
It's interesting that Nova Scotian society recognizes the value of coastal access for the public. And even in courts, we see examples where those values are there, but they are not well expressed in the way these cases are playing out. Outside of the courts, we've heard of a few examples, like the trails Act, or the angling the do protect access in some circumstances, but are not specific to coastal access and are sometimes misunderstood as to what they actually mean to protect.
Hannah Harrison 28:39
But if we think back to what we know of Nova Scotia is more recent history, that is the last few 100 years, and the ways that people once relied heavily on informal agreements that allowed access to natural resources and public spaces. It could be that there's still something to learn from those older ways. It's
Mike Kofahl 28:56
interesting, I live along the Margaree River, which is a famous salmon fishing river. I live in on what I would say as a cultivated hay field. But it's very, very common for anglers all along the Margaree River to access the river across people's property. And in return those property owners actually maintenance those trails, they cut them wider, they put gravel down, they add parking areas. It's this weird thing where it's quite encouraged. And I think what I see from a lot of some of like a lot of the court cases is once it gets to the point where you're taking formal action in court, people really stick to their, their arguments and they kind of shut down any sort of compromise and negotiation, but people are actually quite willing to enable access. Property owners are worried about liability. They're worried about garbage and damage. So you need to address those issues and people accessing property need to feel confident they're allowed to be there that they're aware of dangers that they have, that accessibility is taken into consider ratio and to feel confident of their rights once they get on to say, the Crown land that they can actually be there and are allowed to be there.
Nicolas Winkler 30:08
So maybe there is something in the code of conduct or other agreed upon social contract to be had here that would allow both property owners in the public peace of mind and the opportunity to benefit from our spectacular coastlines. This is an idea we're going to come back to in future episodes. In the meantime, we asked Sam and Mike if they had any final thoughts on how people can protect existing coastal access or pursue new access in the future.
Samuel Eisner 30:31
In a short way, I'd say they can exercise their democratic right in elections and they can really talk to their politicians talk to MLAs and talk to municipal councillors. I think that first case that I mentioned that Lynn case, it's almost perfect the way it touches on this. She says this court recognizes that climate change is real and will no doubt impact Nova Scotia beaches and coastal areas of the province, both now and in the future. However, it is for the legislature and not this court on judicial review to address as the legislature may see fit those concerns. So I think the court answer that question perfectly. If there is going to be a real weighing of these values. That's something that the government has to do. And it has to do that through the way that Canada's democracy works, which is through the legislature.
Nicolas Winkler 31:31
Thanks for listening. Special thanks to our guests, Samuel Eisner and Mike Kofahl of East Coast environmental law.
Hannah Harrison 31:43
In this episode, we talked about the complicated jurisdiction of who actually owns the coast in Nova Scotia, and some of the ways challenges or conflicts over coastal access are showing up in the courts, often in ways that don't actually address some of the underlying human values that we attach to get into the water. We also learned about some of the ways that access to fishing and trails are enabled and sometimes misunderstood, and existing provincial legislation and how courts have directly pointed to the Nova Scotia legislature as the place to solve some of the coastal access problems we face. In future episodes, you'll hear from communities and property owners who are dealing with coastal access through the courts and the very real impacts this issue is having on their lives.
Nicolas Winkler 32:27
Next time on Right of Way:
Kristina Boerder 32:29
I'm the Lead Scientist for a new initiative called the Community eelgrass Restoration Initiative, or sorry for short, we had good connections with the previous land owners, then the property is sold and the new owners not only put up a fence completely around the property, but also they were not amenable to anybody accessing it. This like expands a research day that would be two or three hours to a whole day at least and just makes it much more expensive and complicated to complete our work.
Hannah Harrison 33:03
This series will continue to release one episode a week throughout the summer of 2024. The views expressed in this podcast are solely those of our guests and do not necessarily represent the views of the hosts their affiliates, or the financial supporters of this podcast. None of the perspective shared in this episode should be constituted as legal advice. And remember things may have changed by the time you hear this.
Right of way is supported by the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Additional support from the Marine Affairs Program at Dalhousie University. Research for this episode was done in part by Samuel Eisner sound editing by pod starter cover art by Laura Bonga.
Do you have a coastal access story you'd like to share? Visit our website at www.coastalaccessproject.com to get in touch. With your permission, we may use your feedback in the last episode of this series. Looking for more information about what you heard today? You can find any acts or other documents referenced in this episode in the show notes.
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