August, 1998
Toronto, Ontario
Update, August 1999: Recently released details of the Ministry of Natural Resources' land conservation plans reveal large loopholes allow industry exploitation after all.
Shortly after the release of the Ontario's Living Legacy plan, it became apparent that the Minister of Natural Resources' promises weren't as good as they sounded. In fact mining corporations have rights to exploit new park lands if they turn out to have mineral resources--in effect keeping new parks available for exploitation if industry wants the land, according to an August report from the Sierra Club (Sierra Sept/Oct 1999, p. 16). Forest industries also receive preferential treatment: in return for giving up harvest rights in parks and preserves, the timber companies will be allowed to undertake more intensive harvests in unprotected areas.
The three Lands for Life polanning regions occupy most of the forested regions of central and western Ontario. |
The dispute over Ontario's lands are not yet over. Keep watching the web pages below for updates.
Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is nearing completion on the largest land-use planning process in the province’s history. Within the next few months the MNR will decide the fate of 46 million hectares of forests and lakes, 45% of Ontario’s land. Final decisions are expected to follow the submission of recommendations by industry and citizen “round table” planning groups on July 31. Despite the advertised resource-conservation intent of the process, environmental groups, chiefly the Partnership for Public Lands, which has been monitoring the process from the beginning, report that the Lands for Life planning project is instead systematically doling out public lands to private logging, mining, and hydroelectric companies.
Initiated just two years ago, the Lands for Life planning project was
announced with an emphasis on protecting natural resources and expanding
parks and preserves. The planning area was divided into three regions,
shown in the map at right. The MNR listed its Lands for Life objectives
in the following order:
Three round table planning groups were established to review land use options and to make recommendations to the MNR. However members appointed to the round tables were mainly industry and local government officials from northern and western Ontario. Despite promises to attend to conservation interests, environmental groups were largely excluded from the discussion. Initially all meetings were to be held in the sparsely populated northern and western parts of the province, where only 15% of the province’s population lives. But pressure from environmentalists led to some meetings in urban parts of southern Ontario as well. This move is considered important because urban residents frequently have stronger conservationist views than resource-dependent residents of rural and forested areas.
Environmentalists now charge that Lands for Life is more of a public relations process, and a government give-away of public lands, than a planning effort. Despite early emphasis on environmental interests and protection, Lands for Life is expected to allocate most of the province’s wild lands and roadless areas to long-term or permanent leases for logging and mining companies, according to a report in the Toronto Star. Round table members are dominantly representatives of the timber, mining, and hyropower industries, industry employees, or civic leaders in mining and logging communities.
As a consequence, the land-use options presented have emphasized long-term, perpetually renewable land leases for resource extraction, legal and economic protections for industry, extensive road building, and minimal land set aside. Some round table members have even suggested opening existing provincial parks to logging and mining. Park and conservation lands identified by the round tables are mostly small and isolated pockets, not the large and contiguous tracts proposed by conservationists to protect forest ecosystems and species. Further, the Project for Public Lands charges that the proposed plans encourage clear-cut logging and mechanization, not sustainable logging that would maintain jobs in the region over the long term.
Ontario Natural Resources Minister John Snobelen defends the project and asserts that it will produce satisfactory compromises. Decisions on the Lands for Life plans are expected in the next few months.
To read more, see
Environmental Science, A Global Concern,
Cunningham and Saigo, 5th ed.
Logging issues: pages 302-306
Mining -- environmental effects: pages 350-354
Environmental Science, Enger and Smith,
6th ed.
Land use planning principles: page 246
For further information, see these related web sites:
Sierra Club of eastern Canada: information on Lands For Life and other issues
Ontario's Living Legacy page, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
Partners for Public Lands information
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