Environmentalists press for logging ban in Algonquin

Environmentalists are irked over the uncertainty of natural resources minister Donna Cansfield’s position on logging in Algonquin Provincial Park. Most people are unaware that under current legislation, trees can be cut down and removed from more than three quarters of Ontario’s oldest park, four hours’ drive from Toronto.

Logging regions and tourist routes in Algonquin are kept as separate as possible. “It’s not a park with logging in it - it’s an industrial zone that permits canoing,” says Evan Ferrari of the advocacy group CPAWS Wildlands League, a chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society - originally formed to preserve the park.

The league and others want Cansfield to adopt a recent recommendation from the Ontario Parks Board that the area in the park protected from logging be increased from 22 percent to 54 percent. The Algonquin Forestry Authority, the Crown corporation responsible for allocating cutting areas to forestry companies, supports a protected area only slightly smaller than that proposed by the Parks Board.

Provincial environmental commissioner Gord Miller argues that it’s time to consider a complete ban on logging in Algonquin, as exists in every other provincial park. “The question of principle is central,” he said yesterday. “It’s where the public debate and discussion should be.Cansfield, three weeks into the job of natural resources minister, isn’t considering a ban and is wavering on the proposed modest increase to the protected area because any change would bring her under fire from local logging companies.

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