West Mabou Beach Provincial Park and The Golf Bubble

I believe what we've got ourselves here is a golf bubble. 

Cabot Cape Breton wants 150 acres of the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park to build a golf course.



There is no credible path for the Nova Scotia government to let Cabot have their way. Our government has a stated goal of protecting 20% of our land and water by 2030 – up from the 13% that is currently safe.

Development of any kind is simply irresistible to some politicians, but no government can work to protect more of our ecologically sensitive spaces, like sand dunes, and, simultaneously, let Cabot build a golf course on them.

No serious government.

Cabot has three golf courses down the road in Ingonish, Cabot Links, Cabot Cliffs, and The Nest.

In 2018, the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources nixed Cabot’s plan for the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park, but they seem to have taken no notice of this.

Why?

I suggest that Ben Cowan-Dewar and Mike Keiser, the duo who brought golf to Inverness, suffer from existing in a golf bubble. There is no room for protected sand dunes in the bubble. The Piping Plover is shunned. The upswept moonwort will not find the fungus it needs to thrive there, nor will the threatened Olive-sided Flycatcher whistle “Quick, three beers!”

The upswept moonwort. 

You see, the bubble is small and so can only fit golf.

Let me, briefly, make my case.

The magazine National Club Golfer has referred to Mike Keiser as the “Godfather of Golf Resorts” and [EDIT] Magazine described Ben Cowan-Dewar as “A man who believed when no one else believed him.” In the golf bubble, they are revered as audacious, golf visionaries.

And beyond the golf bubble, they are considered audacious for another reason: Cowan-Dewar and Keiser search the globe for spaces where “dream golf” can be played, and environmentally sensitive and ecologically rare sites are very much on the table.

The Inch or An Inse peninsula is about a 40-minute drive from Killarney in Ireland. Tourism Ireland celebrates that The Inch is “the largest and one of the best remaining ‘intact’ dune systems in the country” and as such has been “designated a special area of conservation.” The only toad in Ireland lives there: The natterjack toad. 

 

Here is what Mike Keiser has to say about The Inch: “One of the best sites I’ve seen or imagined…the Inch peninsula…It’s 1,400 acres and is perfect for golf. But the site is sensitive dunes and in the EU you can’t touch it. I stood there for a while but concluded it would never happen, which is too bad. The Inch peninsula will never be a golf course.

As I type, Mike Keiser is trying, after the Scottish government turned him down in 2020, to build an 18-hole golf course at Coul Links in Scotland.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust has this to say after the 2020 decision: “Ultimately, it remains surprising that plans for development in one of the most protected areas in the country were allowed to go this far. Conservation charities including the Scottish Wildlife Trust were forced to commit a great deal of time, effort, and money into standing up for Coul Links, including giving evidence at a month-long public inquiry. We hope this decision will act as a clear signal that protected sites should be just that, protected.”

That Keiser is back with another proposal for Coul Links in 2022, this time with a private local hotel in the mix, tells us what we need to know in Cape Breton. Cabot is not in the business of respecting government decisions about protected land.

But I do not think that Nova Scotians are in the business of giving away our unique provincial park land to wealthy American golf magnates.

An article in Golf Digest lets us in on what Keiser thinks the passionate, and, yes, desperate, work that has gone into trying to save this protected area from golf.

Coore, a designer working with Keiser on the Coul Links project, told Golf Digest that he was “disturbed” about comments that were made about Mike Keiser at a public meeting about his proposal.  But Mike Keiser was not listening: He left that meeting, and, with Coore, walked the route they plan to create on this protected land and said,“Well, I guess it is all worth it.” 

To hear the Olive -sided flycatcher click here.  

To write Premier Tim Houston click here

 

 

 

 

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