Environmental Commissioner Recognizes MNR Staff for Work on Ontario’s Living Legacy
TORONTO, May 27, 2004 - Ontario’s Living Legacy, the largest expansion of parks and protected areas in the history of the province, is leaving a true legacy for future generations, said Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO). Miller, who monitors compliance by provincial ministries with the Environmental Bill of Rights, is in Peterborough today to present his annual ECO Recognition Award to staff of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) for their work on the initiative.
Announced on March 29, 1999, Ontario’s Living Legacy (OLL) protects 12 per cent of northern and central Ontario, identifying areas in particular that reflect the range of ecosystems and natural features found in the region.
“OLL is the first grand-scale landscape planning initiative in Ontario history designed primarily with the aim of protecting ecological heritage,” Miller said. “In the past, we humans have gone onto the land to do what we want – forestry, mining, camping, cottages – and then what’s left is saved for conservation. Planning was always done on the basis of small parcels of land, constrained by roads and private property. But with OLL, planning by MNR staff was based on first understanding what ecosystem elements and natural heritage features were there – and then conserving them.”
OLL established 378 new protected areas, including nine “signature sites” whose significant natural heritage values and natural beauty warrant special protection. OLL was the result of the largest and most complex public consultation exercise ever carried out by the Ministry of Natural Resources, with Roundtables held across the province and more than 40,000 submissions from the public, 8,000 of them submitted via the Environmental Registry, an Internet site where provincial ministries post environmentally significant proposals.
The ECO Recognition Award ceremony was held on the grounds behind MNR’s Peterborough headquarters at the corner of Water and Charlotte Streets, where a sugar maple will soon be planted along the Otonabee River in honour of MNR’s contribution to OLL. Eighty-five staff members were presented with individual awards, as well as two staff members from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. “I know that ministry staff worked long, hard hours on this massive project,” Commissioner Miller said, “But in the end, OLL proved that disparate parties, with widely divergent goals, could sit down together and resolve their differences – and come out with an equitable agreement that allows our economy to go ahead and yet protects our ecological heritage.”
For more information, please contact our Communications Coordinator at (416) 325-3371 or by e-mail at media@eco.on.ca.