Nature Nova Scotia is partnering with the Healthy Bays Network to campaign against the expansion of open net-pen finfish aquaculture.

The Healthy Bays Network is a community-driven alliance of individuals and organizations with a shared vision for sustainable coastal economies and healthy bays free of open net-pen aquaculture in Nova Scotia. Our mission is to stop the expansion of open net-pen finfish aquaculture in Nova Scotian waters and to ensure a transition from open net-pen finfish aquaculture in Canada. We engage decision-makers and empower individuals with the support they need to take action in stewardship of the waters they know and love.

Nature Nova Scotia's No Net Pens Fund is raising funding to support the creation of new educational and outreach content to help the network reach more Nova Scotians and spread the call to action.

In 2026-2027, the campaign will focus on two bays currently under threat by unchecked salmon feed lot development, Liverpool Bay and St Mary's Bay:

Liverpool Bay

The Healthy Bays Network (HBN) founding member Protect Liverpool Bay (PLB), the Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative, and 23 local lobster harvesters are challenging a provocative ruling by Nova Scotia’s Aquaculture Review Board (ARB). Kelly Cove Salmon, a subsidiary of Cooke Aquaculture, the world’s largest privately held seafood company, applied to put two giant Open-Net fish farms* in the shallow waters of Liverpool Bay. On a bottle drive budget, with years of hard volunteer work, the community stood up and said no. At the last minute, and potentially avoiding defeat, Cooke put their proposal for two huge farms “on-hold” and asked instead for an expansion of an existing license. After a three day hearing, which cost the citizens in legal bills, the ARB approved the expansion and dismissed the community's concerns. In March 2027, PLB and partners are appealing the ARB’s ruling to the Supreme Court of NS. 

St Mary's Bay

Healthy Bays is also backing the efforts of another founding member, the St. Mary’s Bay Protectors (SMBP). Allied with local commercial harvesters, tourism operators, businesses, and communities in Clare, Digby Neck and its Islands, and Annapolis, citizens are mobilizing against a subsidiary of Norway’s Haugland Group, which has proposed four huge new finfish feedlots in a prime lobster nursery for the Bay of Fundy and indeed the entire Gulf of Maine.

Nature Nova Scotia and the Healthy Bays Network are raising funds needed to make these challenges and continue educational activities that bring this issue to more Nova Scotians.

HBN has independently raised $15,000 to launch this grassroots campaign but we need your help to make it grow. Help us host events, produce new website and print materials, and engage Nova Scotians in action. Our campaign will expand on past year's work by utilizing social networks, community hall events, local papers, door knocking, pulpits and bingos, flyers, brochures, and lawn signs, debunking government-industry misinformation and awakening Nova Scotians to what’s really at stake, changing policy and consumer habits.

Our coasts are our responsibility. We can control how they are managed. We can refuse to license massive dumping of raw sewage and chemical-laden effluent. We can prevent ONPs’ devastating impact on our fishery. We can protect our endangered wild salmon populations and restore the health of our rivers. We can and will protect our coasts for future generations.