click to enlarge The Halifax Green Network plan can protect the city's wildnerness.

One of the best things about Halifax is the handy access to unspoiled wilderness. Taking a bus to the lake. Getting lost in the woods a 10-minute drive from downtown. Embarking on a canoe trip right behind Kent Building Supplies in the Bayers Lake Industrial Park. Visitors can't believe how #blessed the locals are to be living here. Sometimes those visitors even decide to move here because of that rugged beauty. But that can be trouble.

The more people who live here—the more the city grows—the more development is needed. Development puts pressure on those wild areas, where land comes cheap and the sales pitch is easy. After all, who wouldn't want to live on a lake and be #lakeblessed? Nevermind that urban sprawl is way expensive for the city and leads to an outsize carbon footprint. Halifax is supposedly against sprawl, with targets for increasing population density in already urban areas and limiting the amount of rural growth, although in reality we've been sprawling like a drunk on a couch.

So how can we preserve those great untouched spaces? There's a plan. The Halifax Green Network plan. And it just might be "the best opportunity Halifax has ever had to protect its natural assets," as someone who knows about these things puts it. In case this is news to you, we've got a video to explain. And the next time city council wonders if saving a bunch of trees and lakes is something worth doing, you can have your say as a #knowledgeblessed citizen.