Ontario's Boreal Forest

Threats to Ontario's boreal forest

In Ontario’s southern Boreal Forest (stretching from the Great Lakes north to roughly the 50th parallel) a long history of one industrial use after another planned in isolation from each other has fragmented the forest into small patches and had a severe impact on sensitive forest wildlife, such as caribou and wolverine, which have all but disappeared from this region. Meanwhile millions of songbird nests have been cut down in the race to feed pulp and saw mills.

It’s not too late! We have a chance to ensure that the wilds of the northern Boreal Forests remain healthy and productive for the billions of birds that depend upon them. Ontario Nature is urging the provincial government to protect the northern Boreal region now! We want to ensure that conservation-based planning is in place before industry becomes established in the northern Boreal Forest.

Logging

Forestry companies are eyeing trees north of the current “cut line” and a government initiative is promoting logging in remote northern forests once considered unprofitable to log, mostly for the production of pulp and paper. Some of these companies are turning the boreal forest into toilet paper, junk mail, and catalogs, instead of using post consumer products to produce their materials. There is movement in the paper industry towards increasing the recycled content of paper products and utilizing alternative sources of fiber for paper production, such as agricultural waste, hemp and kenaf. Initiatives that focus on alternative paper production methods show that it is possible for industry to move away from its reliance on boreal pulp, while maintaining jobs.

Mining

Approximately 4,400 mining claims have been staked across the northern half of Ontario’s Boreal Forest.

When developed, a mine creates a huge impact or ‘footprint’ especially when the large supporting infrastructure of roads, transmission corridors, and air and water pollution impacts are included. While relatively few mines are built, mineral exploration alone has significant impacts. Shockingly, neither mineral exploration nor mine development is subject to environmental assessment in Ontario. There is a real ‘gold rush’ on in northern Ontario with renewed staking and mineral development, greatly increasing concerns about environmental impacts - and leading to increased confrontation with some First Nations.

Escape Clause Why is an ecologically destructive industry like mining exempt from environmental assessments? By Jen Baker, Boreal Campaign Coordinator In 2009, if all goes according to plan, Ontario will have the dubious distinction of being an exporter of diamonds for the first time in the province’s history. The environmental impacts that will result from the approved DeBeers Canada Victor diamond mine, located near Attawapiskat in the James Bay Lowlands, range from habitat destruction to air and water pollution to altered waterways. The mine will affect 5,000 hectares of wilderness and will create a 2,575-square-kilometre “cone of depression” – an area one-third the size of the Greater Toronto Area – caused when water is pumped out of the ground and the soil there caves in. Remarkably, Ontario does not require such an enormous project to be fully examined through a comprehensive environmental assessment. No federal or provincial body ever undertook a complete review of all aspects of the Victor mine and their potential environmental impacts, despite repeated requests from conservation groups and scientific experts to do so. The DeBeers Canada Victor diamond mine is symptomatic of a much bigger problem. More than 41,000 mining claims have been staked throughout the province. Both federal and provincial levels of government should conduct environmental assessments (EAs) on all mining proposals. The federal EA process is triggered if a mining project or any parts of it will require federal permits, federal funding, federal land or authorization under a variety of federal laws, most notably the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Protection Act. As a general rule, however, federal departments review only those aspects of a proposal that require a specific permit (for example, bridge construction) and not the entire project. The federal government assumes that the province in which the mine is proposed reviews the potential impacts of the mine itself. In Ontario, though, a provincial EA of mines rarely takes place because of a little-known and poorly understood exemption called Declaration Order MNDM-3/3. This declaration order, in place since 2003, exempts from the provincial EA process the granting (or renewal) of mining approvals on Crown land. On June 30, 2006, Ontario Minister of the Environment Laurel Broten approved a further three-year extension of this exemption even though the process involved in exploring and extracting metals and minerals from the ground results in an environmentally destructive footprint that far outlasts the length of time a mining project is in operation. Yet mining proposals undergo uncoordinated and piecemeal environmental assessments that are overseen by independent and unrelated government departments, none of which is responsible for reviewing the full array of potentially destructive impacts a mine might have. The Victor diamond mine was given permission to pump 100,000 cubic metres of water out of the Attawapiskat River each day and has sought approval to construct roads, build a new electricity transmission corridor, divert a river and create a barge landing in James Bay. Various provincial agencies assessed each of these elements separately. This piecemeal approach also means that components of the mine that could have significant adverse environmental impacts may proceed before even the limited environmental assessment process is complete. Ontario Nature is calling on the provincial government to close this loophole. We support the request by a coalition of conservation organizations, including CPAWS Wildlands League, MiningWatch Canada and Sierra Legal, that the Ministers of the Environment, Natural Resources and Northern Development and Mines undertake a review of the need for a thorough assessment of the environmental impacts of proposed mining projects under the Mining Act and the Environmental Assessment Act. Any future environmental assessments must take into account the ecological footprint of the entire mining project (from staking to reclamation/remediation) before granting any approvals. While the existing policies are being reviewed and reformed, all approvals of mining projects (including staking and exploration) in northern Ontario should be halted until comprehensive land-use planning legislation is enacted and an appropriate and comprehensive environmental assessment regime is implemented.

Hydro-electric power generation

The best known effect of hydro is its impact of damming rivers and waterways, and flooding vast areas of forests, valleys, and lakes. There is an increasing threat to Canada’s central Boreal region with major developments being planned or considered in Manitoba, and in Quebec - that’s on top of the massive installations both of those provinces already have. Ontario may be less invested in hydro than our immediate neighbours, but many small, medium and larger projects are envisioned as the province’s energy demand soars and the government’s promise to shut down coal-fired generation plants is implemented.

Like so many industrial activities, the impacts of hydro development go far beyond the local site. Massive transmission corridors, with supporting road networks further fragment habitats across thousands of kilometers.

Perhaps the biggest current hydroelectric threat to Ontario’s northern Boreal is from outside the province’s borders. A proposed new project in Manitoba could lead to the construction of a massive transmission corridor through the heart of both provinces’ frontier Boreal Forest.

It’s not too late! We have a chance to ensure that the wilds of the northern Boreal Forests remain healthy and productive for the billions of birds that depend on them.

BUT WE HAVE TO ACT TODAY!