Ontario Nature Blog

Marked on the map above are natural areas in Ontario that call out for protection. Click each point on the map to learn more about these special places. View the full size interactive map.  Currently, less than 11 percent of Ontario’s land and inland waters are protected. We need to work together to protect safe havens ...

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As a GIS Analyst, I spend a lot of my time making maps and exploring the Ontario landscape from behind a computer screen. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to visit the Frontenac Arch and the Eastern Ontario region of the Canadian Shield with our Conservation Technician, Ryan Wolfe, this past fall. We went ...

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People are often fearful of something new. This fear can result in unwillingness to break from routine – which, arguably, has been the case in conservation across Canada for many years. Other Effective Areas-based Conservation Measures Take “Other Effective Areas-based Conservation Measures” (OECMs), for instance. This unwieldy term applies to areas that aren’t legislated parks ...

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Patience may be a virtue, but in the case of Rondeau Provincial Park, we’ve waited long enough. For over 60 years, the Government of Ontario has acknowledged the need to phase out private cottages in provincial protected areas, such as Rondeau Provincial Park. And now it’s proposing a three-year extension of the leases while it ...

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Here we go again. Relentless in the pursuit of its “open for business” agenda the Government of Ontario wants to weaken protections for nature in order to fast-track development across the province. This time it is targeting the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), Ontario’s primary land use policy, with the goal of “reducing barriers and costs ...

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