Evening Grosbeak CREDIT: Ducks Unlimited

• Home
  • Protect
    • Protect Wild Species and Wild Spaces
    • Habitat
      • Greenway Initiative
        • Grey-Bruce Greenway Initiative
        • Frontenac Arch Greenway
        • Green Energy Act
      • Nature Reserves
        • Protection Priorities
        • Ways to Conserve Land
        • A Gift of Land
        • Stewardship
        • Land Trusts
      • Trees in Trust
    • Species
      • Reptiles at Risk
      • Ontario's Reptile and Amphibian Atlas
        • Policies and Procedures
        • Survey Guidelines
        • Atlas FAQs
      • Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas
    • Campaigns
      • Biodiversity
      • Boreal Forest
        • A Globally Significant Ecosystem
        • What the Boreal Forest Does for Us
        • Threats to the Boreal Forest
        • First Nations Communities
      • Boreal Songbirds
        • Canadian Boreal Initiative Bird Study
        • Saving Forests, Saving Birds
      • Endangered Species
      • Mining Act
        • Ring of Fire
      • Lake Simcoe

Saving Forests, Saving Birds

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.

In 2008, the Province made a landmark commitment on behalf of conservation. Premier Dalton McGuinty announced that his government will protect at least half of Ontario's boreal region. 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

Now we must work on how the promise will be fulfilled.

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.

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.

Back to top