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© Lora Denis
Black ash habitat © Eli Sagor CC BY-NC 2.0
In 2019 the Government of Ontario rammed through amendments to our Endangered Species Act (ESA), decimating protections for the province’s most imperiled plants and animals. Among the changes was a new power allowing the government to override automatic protections for newly listed threatened and endangered species, and their habitats.
The Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) is now exercising this power with a proposal to delay protections for black ash and its habitat by two years, once it is listed.
Here are 10 good reasons to oppose this proposal and demand immediate protection for endangered black ash trees and their habitats.
For all these reasons, black ash should benefit from the full protection of the law, without further delay. Ontario must live up to its responsibility to protect and recover this globally imperiled, culturally significant species. We are amid the sixth mass extinction due to human indifference and delays. Let’s not add another species to the list.
If you agree, please join Ontario Nature in opposing the proposed delay in protections. The deadline for comment is November 7, 2021.
Sprawl encroaching on Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve
Hi Anne,
As a member of the Bruce Trail Peninsula club I have recently helped to plant two dozen hopefully borer-resistant elm saplings from U. Of G.
My property at Sky Lake abuts the Rankin Resource provincially significant wetlands (it is also currently free of borer) ,so I wonder if it would be possible to obtain some ash saplings to plant here. An option to counter the tree’s losses elsewhere … ?
In hopes, my regards Tony
Tonybarton38@hotmail.com
Is there still anyway at all to protect the Black Ash at all? Apart from Northern Renfrew County are there any left to protect of consequence? From what I can tell it is only a matter of time before they are all gone anyway?
Any area of significant stands that I know of are all obliterated — albeit leaving seedlings behind but those are also doomed in turn. In many respects the Black Ash will now become a scrub tree in the existing forested areas and doomed in any suburban or urban areas until we can develop a better means of protecting them against the Ash Borer transmitted disease. I’ve signed the petition because I do see that a recovery plan of some sort is worth considering but I’m not hopeful about this one.
The situation is dire indeed. However, while most individual black ash trees succumb to emerald ash borer, some appear to be resistant (Steiner, K.C. et al., “Genetic, spatial, and temporal aspects of decline and mortality in a Fraxinus provenance test following invasion by the emerald ash borer,” Biol Invasions 21, 3439–3450 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-019-02059-w ). Ontario’s goal should be to preserve as many trees as possible as soon as possible so that any potential genetic variation that provides resistance is identified and protected.
– Anne Bell, Ontario Nature