Re EBR # 011-1300…

Re EBR # 011-1300

Barton Feilders

Manager, Ministry of Natural Resources

Natural Heritage, Lands and Protected Spaces Branch

Parks and Protected Areas Policy Section

300 Water Street

Peterborough, Ontario

K9J 8M5

Dear Mr. Feilders,

York Simcoe Naturalists is an affiliated group of Ontario Nature. Our objectives include identifying and encouraging the protection and preservation of ecologically significant habitat and species, and developing and maintaining a cooperative working relationship with other conservation organizations.

The Ontario government recently announced its intention to extend cottage leases inside ecologically sensitive Rondeau Provincial Park by an additional 21 years, until 2038 or until the death of the leaseholder whichever comes first.

While the leasing of private cottages is part of the park’s long history, the government decided in 1986 to extend the leases one last time until 2017, as recommended by the Provincial Park Advisory Council. Currently, 287 lease holds are located inside park boundaries. All cottagers entered into their current leases with the full knowledge that these leases would not be renewed after 2017. The current approved park management plan states that the cottage leases will be terminated in 2017. Extending the cottage leases would contradict the clear, legislated management priority for the park system in Ontario.

Rondeau Provincial Park, an area of only 32 square kilometers on the shore of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario, has a significant mosaic of natural habitat, plants and wildlife. The park’s provincially and nationally significant habitats include coastal marshes, buttonbush sloughs, oak savannah, eastern cottonwood savannah, and Great Lakes shoreline sand dunes, habitat recognized as being internationally endangered. Rondeau Park is a refuge for dozens of species at risk that depend on protected habitat within the heavily developed landscape of southern Ontario, including the prothonotary warbler, Acadian flycatcher, Fowler’s toad, spiny soft shell turtle, nodding pogonia, and red mulberry. In southern Ontario, where less than 4% of the landscape is protected in parks and conservation lands, few opportunities exist for the expansion of protected areas. Protected areas are especially critical to the protection of wildlife in this area. Rondeau is renowned for its biodiversity. To the extent possible, its unique vegetation-landform features should be free of human structures and manicured landscaping and restored to a natural state where wild, native species thrive.

Maintaining ecological integrity is supposed to be the guiding management principle for Ontario’s provincial parks. Ontario’s Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, passed in 2006 under the McGuinty government, enshrined the maintenance of ecological integrity as the first objective and the first guiding principle of park management. However in Rondeau, of a 9km long shoreline, 7.5km is dominated by private cottages. The cottages have a negative ecological impact. Simply by occupying a good portion of the land base, the cottages impede its use by wildlife. Direct harm to wildlife has also been documented .The recovery strategy for the threatened eastern fox snake notes, for example, that some cottage owners have admitted to killing fox snakes. Invasive landscape species are spreading from cottage lots to adjacent oak savannah displacing the native flora and fauna. Lawn mowing kills many fowlers toads. Some cottages have removed dune grasses necessary to prevent erosion of the dunes. The use of fertilizers and pesticides further compromises the environment.

In the past, the cost of annual leases did not reflect current market value and do not come close to the cost of maintaining road, sewage and hydro access. Many of the cottages are rented out for private profit. Some are not cottages at all but are used as permanent residences year round. In essence, Ontario residents are subsidizing these leaseholders to have exclusive rights to portions of a provincial park the public has no access to. The leases effectively reduce the size of the park, and therefore reduce the amount of habitat for the numerous species at risk. Provincial parks are publicly funded and belong to everyone in Ontario as a legacy for future generations.

The extension of cottage leases to 2017 was huge concession to cottagers at the time and strongly opposed by conservation organizations. Another such concession is unacceptable especially given the provincial governments commitments to biodiversity, recovery of endangered species, and maintaining the ecological integrity of protected areas. When the leases end they should end.

Yours truly,

Conservation Director

York Simcoe Naturalists

[Original Comment ID: 129052]