Ontario's Boreal Forest

Saving forests, saving birds

The Conservation Opportunity

Ontario has a rare opportunity to protect a vast, naturally functioning, wilderness. Premier McGuinty has made serious commitments to protect the globally significant biodiversity, water sources and habitats of this great Boreal Forest.

“We will institute meaningful, broad-scale land-use planning for Ontario’s Northern Boreal Forest before any new major development, including ensuring full participation by native communities.”

- Dalton McGuinty, March 2003

Yet no action has been taken on this promise. In fact, that promise is being broken with the approval of the DeBeers Victor Diamond Mine, the continued free access for mineral staking leading to exploration for mining, and potential new forestry allocations. The government must fulfill this promise so that the northern wilderness is preserved, sensitive species are protected, and northern communities are sustained.

Recent polls show that many Ontarians want the Boreal Forest protected:

• 90% of Ontarians want the provincial government to protect more forests as a defence against global warming
• 92% of Ontarians agree that Ontario needs proper land-use planning for our remaining wilderness in the North
• 88% agree that Ontario should BAN all logging in key habitat of endangered species such as Woodland Caribou

What Needs To Be Done?

• Land-use Planning : Establish a comprehensive conservation-focused land-use planning program for the entire northern region before it is carved up with roads, hydro lines, clear cuts, and more open pit mines. Ontario’s planning act applies only to southern Ontario. There are no rules to control where development occurs or to make sure that it unfolds in an orderly fashion. There are extraordinary values in the north that make it globally important and worthy of a world-class planning regime.
  • Such a planning process needs to put conservation first; it need’s to make sure that we identify and protect habitat for songbirds and caribou and opportunities for First Nations to practice their traditional activities like hunting and trapping, in a network of large protected areas that are connected to each other through wildlife corridors. Our vision is for a northern landscape that is the reverse of what we see in southern Ontario. Rather than a few isolated parks in a landscape dominated by development; the extraordinary qualities of the northern boreal region can be protected by isolating development in a sea of intact, protected boreal forest.
• Protect significant areas of intact caribou habitat in the commercial forestry zone; a move that also would store large quantities of carbon that otherwise would contribute to global warming.

What you can do

• Send a letter to Premier McGuinty urging him to keep his promise to protect Ontario’s boreal forest. View a sample letter to the Premier.
• Call or write your MPP and mention:
  • that what happens in Ontario’s northern Boreal region is important to you
  • that allowing development to proceed into the northern Boreal region without planning is unacceptable
  • that the Ontario government needs to implement a planning act for the northern Boreal region that creates new protected areas and takes away the priority of mining over every other activity
  • that the Ontario government needs to set aside a minimum of 1 million hectares of intact habitat for Woodland Caribou and carbon storage in the southern Boreal region
  • that your MPP should encourage Premier McGuinty to fulfill his promise to protect Ontario’s northern Boreal Forest by establishing a conservation-focused land use planning program
  View a sample letter to an MPP.

You can find contact information for your MPP at http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/members/members_current.do?locale=en.

If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Jen Baker, Boreal Campaign Coordinator by email at jenniferb@ontarionature.org or by phone at 416-444-8419 or toll-free 1-800-440-2366, ext. 224.