[All] Forest Fragmentation report/ Enviro. Monitoring: Are the risks too high?

[Louisette Lanteigne]

Hi everyone

Impacts of Forest Fragmentation
In the attachment is a 4 page PDF report just released from Nature Canada speaking about the issue of forest fragmentation in Ontario and the urgent need to protect our woodland habitats. Over 80 percent of the upland woodlands south and east
of the Canadian Shield have been lost since the nineteenth century and the quality and ecological viability of many of the remaining woodlands are also being degraded. It speaks of planning issues, water issues, impacts of fragmentation and policies we can implement to help protect these systems. The data is worth passing along to 
your ward reps and environmental councils for their consideration.

Are today's Environmental planning risk exceeding reasonable managability?
Environmental solicitor Diane Saxe from London Ontario has released an interesting article published on her blog site which discusses the BP spill, but can easily be applied to many proposals in our region, particularly in regards to protection of the Waterloo Moraine. In a nutshell she states "Our destructive capacity has far outstripped our ability to manage or even understand the risks." At the ends the article she states the following:

A generation ago, environmentalists fought for environmental assessment of major projects, a process that has undoubtedly helped manage many smaller risks. But environmental assessment, at least as it is currently designed, only makes sense in a world of risk; it cannot work in a world of uncertainty, where “we simply don’t have a clue what is going to happen”. We mustn’t fool ourselves that more planning, more regulation, more environmental assessments will solve our problems and prevent future spills like this. They won’t.

Here's the link to that article:
http://www.slaw.ca/2011/02/14/the-bp-commission-and-the-impossibility-of-managing/

Good news: 875 acres of forest saved in Ontario!
The W. Garfield Weston Foundation,
 a private family foundation, has funded the permanent preservation of 
more than 875 acres (354 hectares) of Carolinian Canada land in Norfolk 
County in south-western Ontario through a new $6.1 million donation to 
the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Beautiful legacy to give. 

Have a good one everybody!

Lulu :0)


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