Nun's Island forest fight

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by George Maddux

Who wants to buy a few acres of swampland? If it's on Nun's Island, the answer is hundreds, possibly thousands. The movement to stop the development of a wetland forest on the posh Verdun suburb recently collected a 4,500-signature petition, raised $3.3-million in private donations to save three hectares of South Wood, and topped it off with a rally last Saturday that drew 300 supporters.

"It's a mystical place. It's the second most important bird-watching site in Quebec. Thirty-three bird groups are behind us all the way," says Nina Gould, head of Nun's Island's Committee for the Protection of Patrimony. "It's a pre-colonial forest that was sustained through three centuries by the nuns of the Congregation Notre-Dame."

Gould is negotiating with provincial and municipal officials as well as Proment Corporation, the landowners, in hopes of saving the habitat of various owls, hawks, bald eagles, newts and other wildlife. "In the 1950s, there were 128 hectares of forest on Nun's Island," says Gould. She says a phone survey suggests that most of the 13,000 island residents are willing to pay increased taxes to maintain the 10 hectares of forest now remaining.

Samuel Gewurz, the Proment boss whose father bought the entire island with a partner in the late '50s, says he is willing to sell at market price, almost twice what the committee hopes to pay. "It's worth $20 a foot. We have a plan to develop it that's ready to go, but if [the committee] wants to, they can buy it." :

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