Environment and Conservation
June 17, 2015

The following statement was given today in the House of Assembly by the Honourable Dan Crummell, Minister of Environment and Conservation:

Lawn Bay Ecological Reserve Becomes Province's Newest Protected Area

Mr. Speaker, this past Friday, I had the pleasure of joining my Honourable Colleague, the Member for Grand Bank, residents, municipal leaders, school children and representatives of the Wilderness and Ecological Reserve Advisory Council - or WERAC - in the beautiful community of Lord's Cove to officially announce the establishment of the Lawn Bay Ecological Reserve, the newest addition to the province's parks and protected areas system.

Lawn Bay Ecological Reserve, located close to the communities of Lawn and Lord's Cove on the Burin Peninsula, provides a habitat for thousands of nesting seabirds. Of particular significance are the only recorded breeding records for Manx Shearwater in North America. The three islands in the reserve, together with the adjacent waters, also provide nesting habitat for at least seven other seabird species: Leach's storm-petrels, herring gulls, great black-backed gulls, black guillemots, black-legged kittiwakes, common murres and, from time to time, common and arctic terns.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador is home to globally-significant seabird breeding colonies, most of them already protected as Seabird Ecological Reserves. This reserve, along with six other existing Seabird Ecological Reserves, protects internationally-significant seabird colonies including approximately 152 square km of marine area around those colonies.

This government, through the Department of Environment and Conservation, remains committed to a clean, sustainable environment and healthy, resilient ecosystems for the social, physical, cultural, biological and economic well-being of the province - now and into the future. We recognize the critical importance of protected areas as essential contributors to effective ecosystems conservation. We are also committed to protecting provincially and nationally significant landscapes and contributing to a Canada-wide network of protected areas. This commitment is clearly evident through our network of 18 Ecological Reserves, two Wilderness Reserves, 13 Provincial Camping Parks, seven Natural and Scenic Attraction Parks, one Waterway Park, 10 Provincial Park Reserves, the T'Railway Provincial Park and three National Parks.

And this is a very impressive network, I'm proud to say. But government cannot take sole credit for it. Rather, these achievements represent collaboration between the province, through the dedicated staff of the department's Parks and Natural Areas division, residents in communities such as Lord's Cove and Lawn Bay, and the engaged and committed members of WERAC who give freely of their time and energy towards preserving the province's natural heritage.

I ask all Honourable Members to join me now in thanking everyone involved in the establishment of the Lawn Bay Ecological reserve for their dedication to protecting and preserving this incredible area for future generations.

2015 06 17                              2:30 p.m.