Time running out for Nova Scotia Nature Trust to buy offshore island

The Nova Scotia Nature Trust has secured more than 85 per cent of the hidden offshore gems it’s protecting in its 100 Wild Islands campaign.

But a hidden gem along the province’s eastern shore remains unprotected and time is running out.

Little Charles is currently owned by developers and will hit the market next month.

The Nature Trust hopes to raise enough money to purchase it.

“To have a development and privatization and everybody has to keep off this island would be heartbreaking for Nova Scotians,”said Bonnie Sutherland, Nova Scotia Nature Trust executive director. “From an ecological perspective, it really is important that we protect all of these wild islands as one integrated ecosystem.”

Coastal islands like Little Charles also act as a buffer between the Atlantic Ocean and shorelines. This prevents massive damages that natural disasters and storms bring. Sutherland said preserving these islands would help mitigate climate change.

“Keeping these habitats intact that are so important for absorbing waters, absorbing storms and the damage they cause and helping to slow climate change and the loss of all the wildlife and birds we love so much,” she said.

Surrounded by a rich marine ecosystem and intact forests, the islands provide migratory birds with shelter as they move through the Atlantic Flyaway.

Many birds also use the islands for nesting, which is difficult for them to do on the main land due to disturbance of their forest habitats.

Throughout the years, the island has changed a lot while also revealing the story of its past.

“The rocks here are a million years old,” said Sutherland. “The systems that have changed over time, some over tens of thousands of years. The forest on these islands have been here undisturbed since the last ice age.”

Generations of eastern shore residents have enjoyed discovering and exploring the islands.

According the Sutherland, when the Nature Trust began its 100 Wild Island campaign, it was met with confusion from many residents because they did not know that islands, like Little Charles, existed off the coast.

That changed after residents had the opportunity to take an aerial tour of the islands.

Brian Murphy’s family has been in Wyses Corner, N.S., for six generations and once owned a few of the islands.

Murphy says what he saw moved him.

“I have tours for tourists here on the water, but flying up there looking down, it was impressive. It just looks so different,” he said.

The Nova Scotia Nature Trust has until Nov. 4 to raise $200,000 to purchase Little Charles.