Thirty-three bags of garbage from just 5 km of road. Roadside littering continues to be a significant and bewildering problem in our province. Since 2010, Coastal Action has been removing roadside garbage from Route 3 between Lunenburg and Mahone Bay on a biannual basis. With just 6 months between each cleanup, we’re continually disappointed with the volume of waste we find from year to year. 

On May 3, just one day before Nova Scotia’s Adopt-a-Highway Day, we collected 33 bags of garbage along our stretch of road as part of the Adopt-a-Highway Program. Tim Hortons cups, plastic bags, straws, and energy drink cans dominated this season’s haul. 

Now in its 26th year, the Adopt-a-Highway Program provides businesses, organizations, and volunteer groups with a chance to improve the health of our environment and local communities by removing garbage from roadsides and interchanges. Over 170 groups have adopted more than 1,000 kilometers of secondary roads and 18 highway exits. These dedicated volunteers remove an average of 6,000 bags of garbage and recycling each year. 

​Here are just a few of the benefits of this great program:

• Protect the environment by preventing the breakdown and transport of plastic particles and other harmful chemicals.
• Prevent wildlife from ingesting plastic and other materials.
• Contribute to tourism and recreation through roadside beautification.
• Reduce wildlife collisions by removing the food and garbage that attract wildlife to roadside habitats.

​Now that I’ve convinced you, why not find a way to get involved! Adopting a stretch of highway or an exit is easy, free, and a great way to connect with your community and get outdoors. If you’re looking to join an existing group, check out the map on the Adopt-a-Highway Program’s website to find a group near you. If you’re looking for less of a commitment, we’re always looking for volunteers to join us as we clean up Route 3 or take part in our many shoreline cleanups along the south shore.

​A unique, hands-on conservation program - Fish Friends - has been an important part of environmental education in the classroom across Nova Scotia for many years. Coastal Action has proudly delivered this program to schools throughout the south shore region of the province since 2003, providing classrooms with hatchery-sourced fish eggs (Atlantic salmon eggs up until 2012, now brook trout eggs) and everything they need to raise their eggs to the fry stage over a 5-month period.        

The Fish Friends Program was started in 1992 by the Atlantic Salmon Federation, an international NGO that promotes the conservation of wild Atlantic salmon and their environment. The program has been offered throughout Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Maine, and New England. In Nova Scotia, Fish Friends is supported by the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture’s Inland Fisheries Division and the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. 

A Fish Friends Curriculum Guide, along with a presentation by our fisheries staff, provides teachers with plenty of ideas for engaging students in the program. Topics such as habitats, lifecycles, freshwater ecology, and conservation can all be woven into the program as students raise their fish. Our Atlantic Whitefish Project Coordinator, Andy Breen, has presented this program to hundreds of students over the years and the kids clearly think he’s pretty cool!

​This year, Andy and Melissa Risto, our Atlantic Whitefish Fisheries Technician, have delivered a total of 2,100 brook trout eggs to 7 schools on the south shore which will be released into our local streams in June. 

​The key to this program’s continued success is the teachers who agree to take on this 5-month commitment. We’ve been lucky to work with some great teachers over the years who really make the most of the learning opportunities for their students. Nick Jeffrey has found many ways to connect the program to the upper elementary science curriculum for his grade 5/6 class at Petite Rivière Elementary School. Being in the Petite Rivière watershed, Nick uses this opportunity to introduce his students to the plight of the endangered Atlantic whitefish and the impacts of invasive species. 

​One of the greatest strengths of this program is its focus on the habitats and conservation issues right outside the school doors. Students release their fish into streams near their schools, sparking a sense of pride in their little fish population and a feeling of ownership over their stream. This is where stewardship and conservation values begin. 

​While the premise of Fish Friends is simple – raise fish in a tank and release them – the learning opportunities are endless, and the connection to our freshwater habitats and conservation issues in NS creates a lasting impact on our next generation of environmental stewards. If you're a teacher interested in participating in Fish Friends, please contact Andy Breen at andrew@coastalaction.org. 

Exciting changes are afoot here at Coastal Action as we celebrate 25 years of conservation at work throughout the south shore region of Nova Scotia and beyond. Join us as we reflect on our successes over the years and look forward to the next 25. With a fresh new look, new website and blog, as well as some great projects and initiatives in the pipe, we're thrilled to keep striving towards our vision of a healthy environment for future generations. ​

Too often we neglect to share our successes, instead forging on from one interesting project to the next without stopping to let people know what we do, why we do it, and how they could help. Through this blog, we hope to do just that. 
Get to know the Coastal Action team and the work we do with stories from the field. Discover why we do what we do and what makes southwest Nova Scotia the ecological gem that it is. Learn what you can do to protect this special place that we all call home. ​

Over the past year, we've enlisted the help of branding guru, Meg Craig, and her team at Skysail Brand to revamp our website and brand. They've provided us with a sleek, modern look while maintaining our classic colors and the iconic Roseate tern. Watch for this new logo as it appears on everything from our website and communication materials to our clothing and accessories. ​

Join us on February 23, 2019 for our Birthday Bash, a celebration of 25 years of conservation work on the south shore. We wouldn't be here today without the continued support of our local community and the many partners and stakeholders that we've worked with over the years. So come out and party with us at the Bridgewater Best Western on Saturday February 23, 2019 from 8pm-12pm! Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at our office (37 Tannery Road, Lunenburg) or at The Barn Coffee House in Mahone Bay, and the Kinley Pharmacy in Lunenburg. 

​Step aside stand-up paddleboards, SUP has a new meaning and it's single-use plastic. The anti-plastic movement has firmly taken root in Lunenburg thanks to a local group of concerned citizens called Plastic Free Lunenburg (PFL). And rightly so. With 300 million tonnes of plastic produced globally each year but only 9-15% of it recycled, it's time to turn awareness into action. 

​We were excited to partner with PFL for their community consultation event, held at the Lunenburg Firehall on January 24, 2019. PFL hopes to gauge the level of support for their goal – to request a legislated ban on single-use plastics in the Town of Lunenburg. With nearly 200 people in attendance and additional open-house events in the days that followed, it certainly seems like the community is ready to tackle our bad habits and get on the right side of history. 

​Now that we recognize the need to reduce single-use plastics, how do we move beyond awareness to achieve meaningful behaviour change? A by-law banning the sale and distribution of SUPs in the Town of Lunenburg is an excellent place to start, and an opportunity for leadership and innovation. But what happens when we leave town limits? People need to feel the collective empowerment of this movement as they change their individual habits and choices. We need to identify the barriers, both real and perceived, that keep us stuck in our ways.

​As research shows, positive encouragement and advice lead to far greater results than fear, shaming, or shock tactics. We can all make simple changes today to refuse and reduce SUP use; here are just a few:

​In many ways, Nova Scotia stands among the leaders in waste management across the country. PFL, along with many local businesses, have started something in Lunenburg that just might turn into a pilot program other Nova Scotian towns look to as a shining example. 
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Here at the Coastal Action office, we're always looking for ways to reduce our waste and lead by example. We'd love to hear about how other local offices and businesses are reducing their plastic use, please share below!