Peaceful Parks Coalition For Immediate Release Implementation of Ontario Forest Accord Proves Environmentalists' Worst Fears Toronto, November 27, 2002 - Signed in 1999, the Conservative government touted the Ontario Forest Accord as an historic agreement that sets out a strategy for increasing protected areas and increasing timber production. Notably, The Accord secures the industry's wood supply before further land withdrawals are made to expand Ontario's parks and protected areas. It guarantees the industry no long-term reduction in wood supply, no increase in the costs of wood supply, and potential exemptions of regulations designed to protect biodiversity in areas where tree plantations are established - tree plantations increase wood supply by growing more wood from less land in less time and are also associated with the manipulation of tree genetics. Without secure wood supply, compensation will be payable to the forest industry where withdrawals or reallocations of public lands may be necessary or desirable for public interest reasons. "The Ontario government is now implementing this agreement and what we're seeing is a push to take every last stick out of the forest," says AnnaMaria Valastro of the Peaceful Parks Coalition. "The landscape will be so degraded that even if we were to successfully increase protected areas, they would be islands of green in a sea of industrial activity." To increase wood supply, the Ontario government is currently considering utilizing more of the whole tree, therefore leaving less organic matter on the ground that could be recycled into soil and nutrients; cutting into buffer zones designed to protect riparian areas and wildlife habitat; increase crown land available for the production of tree plantations; and it will encourage the cutting of older forests first to increase yield. The instrument for benchmarking the fibre requirements of Ontario's forest industry has been arbitrarily set on current usage with no consideration for forest ecology. "It is a completely ad hoc process," says Valastro. The Ontario Forest Accord constitutes a perverse incentive with respect to the conservation of biological diversity - one must destroy the natural environment in order to protect the natural environment, and constrains future governments, because of considerable costs consequences, from exercising decisions in the public interest as is appropriate at that time. The Accord was written and signed without a transparent public process. For example, it was designed and agreed to by only a few government officials and selected industry and environmental representatives. It was never posted on the Environmental Bills of Rights Registry for public comment. "We will be asking that the government's wood supply strategies and the Ontario Forest Accord be subjected to a Full Environmental Assessment. Such sweeping regulations cannot be reflected by only a few hand picked interests." -30- For more information, contact AnnaMaria Valastro, Peaceful Parks Coalition, at 416.537.3212 Ontario Forest Accord: 1. www.mnr.gov.on.ca/mnr/oll/ofaab/accord.html Peaceful Parks Coalition P.O. Box 326, Station B Toronto, Ontario M5T 2W2 ppc@peacefulparks.org www.peacefulparks.org