HALIFAX, N.S. —

Environmentalists are disappointed and puzzled after a Halifax developer put up no trespassing signs along trails that have been used for decades in the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes area.

Annapolis Group Inc. posted the signs, reading “PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING,” in the last few weeks on its property along trails near Charlie’s Lake and Fox Lake — about 500 metres and 1.5 kilometres, respectively, from Kearney Lake.

“I’m not sure why now is the time to have done that, but it’s just disappointing to us,” Diana Whalen, co-chair of the 600-member Friends of Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Society, said in an interview.

“It just points out the private nature of that portion of the land and that they’re asserting that now by putting up the signs.”

The property abuts 1,700 hectares of land between Bayers Lake and Hammonds Plains protected by the provincial government in 2009 and 2017 — the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area.

Halifax has long promised to create a municipal park surrounding the wilderness area, to act as a buffer. It officially identified the lands it wanted to use for the park in 2006.

There was no action for about a decade. In 2016, regional council voted not to allow development on lands abutting the wilderness. It also voted to direct staff to start buying the necessary land from 15 owners, including Annapolis Group, which owns nearly 400 hectares of it.

Annapolis Group gave notice in early 2017 that it was suing Halifax, seeking $119 million because, it argues, the municipality “effectively expropriated” its land without compensation by not allowing it to be developed.

One of the parcels it owns is a 55-hectare strip starting near Charlie’s Lake and stretching around the top of Fox Lake.

Michael Haynes, author of Hiking Trails of Nova Scotia and five other trails books, was walking his sister’s dog near Charlie’s Lake on March 30 when he came upon a no trespassing sign near an abandoned cabin, right on the line between protected land and Annapolis land.