PARTNERSHIPS IN PALEONTOLOGY IN NOVA SCOTIA: REWARDS TO COMMUNITIES, ENTHUSIASTS & RESEARCHERS

Nova Scotia has a varied and well known history of fossil discoveries and has spectacular coastal sites maintained and replenished by the erosive forces of the sea. Although ownership of fossils in Nova Scotia falls to the Province by law, these fossiliferous coastal sections are traversed by the public leading to paleontological discoveries from known sites and of entirely new fossil sites. Because the number of palaeontologists affiliated with institutions and productive days in the field are limited, most paleontological discoveries here, as elsewhere, are made by the non-professional. In recognition of these realities, the Nova Scotia Museum is developing a fully inclusive permit structure not only for work conducted by institutional researchers on protected areas designated under the Province’s Special Places Protection Act, but also for avocational partners and casual collectors. In this paper, two examples of important research partnerships with non-affiliated individuals are described: one at the Fossil Cliffs of Joggins, described by Lyell as ‘the finest example in the world’ of the strata of the 'Coal Age', site of the earliest known reptile and a proliferation of fossil lycopsid forests, and the second at Brule, a newly discovered and imperilled intertidal site of early Permian age that exquisitely records the world’s only known walchian conifer forest and the earliest trackway record of gregarious behaviour among terrestrial vertebrates. In both instances, collaboration with non-affiliated researchers and collectors has been vital. Local communities have embraced their fossil heritage and are seeking sensitive community based economic development projects around them, ranging from interpretive centre to UNESCO World Heritage site. For this partnership to work, government has to be willing to think outside the box and communities and enthusiasts have to take seriously their role as stewards. Respect by paleontologists for avocational researchers and collectors is key to the success of collaboration.