Environmental group stops Temagami logging

A petition by a Toronto-based environment organization has stopped logging in Temagami.

No wood will be harvested, the group said, pending a decision by an Ontario government ministry.

Further details are included in the following news release from Earthroots:
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(Toronto)
The woods in this ecologically unique region of Canada have been unusually quiet this spring. By now, logging and road building would have begun in earnest according to the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) logging plan, but canoeists and recreationalists returning to Temagami with the warmer weather have found the wilderness even more silent than usual. This silence is due to a challenge by environmental group Earthroots to the plan that has thus far quieted the machines and idled the chainsaws

"It speaks to the seriousness of the issues in our challenge that the Ministry of the Environment has chosen to halt logging and road work while considering our submission," said Victor Lorentz, Earthroots Forest Campaigner. "Our challenge addresses issues fundamental to the management of the land base in Temagami and plans for logging have had to be halted to ensure protection of Temagami's unique features."

Earthroots petitioned the Minister of the Environment to submit the plan to an individual environmental assessment in February. The Minister has not yet made a decision on the issues. The Earthroots request was based on the MNR’s failure to manage the forest according to the Temagami Land Use Plan (TLUP). The group cites access control and the recreation area strategy as issues that have not been reconciled.

"There is an obligation for MNR to do recreation planning and integrate that with logging plans" added Lorentz. "Neither the planning nor the integration has happened and so logging under the MNR's plan will not adequately address recreation, remoteness or tourism. In addition the MNR has failed to control motorized public access to areas where these values are important, and as a result two independent audits have found an epidemic of violations. The rules are clear: access must be controlled in order to protect sensitive features."

"There are whole, sweeping sections of the TLUP that have not been addressed by MNR. This failure jeopardizes the sound management of the area and threatens its ecology, recreation and tourism. These values are being pushed aside to allow for the expansion of industrial exploitation without adequate recognition of other forest users and forest values" continued Lorentz.

Land use planning in Temagami served as the template for planning in the rest of Ontario. Earthroots contends that MNR's lack of commitment to the Land Use Plan in Temagami endangers land use planning, and the values it is supposed to protect, throughout the rest of the province as well.