ERO 019 6142 Comments on The…

ERO 019 6142 Comments on The Rondeau Provincial Park Management Plan Amendment

I would like to make the following comments on the amendment:

1) Lease extension should not be granted because cottages are in a provincial park are incompatible with the conservation values that a Provincial Park such as Rondeau represents.

2) Cottages due not enhance the values that make Rondeau Provincial Park special.

3) Reason enough to eliminate cottages in Rondeau is shown in the ERO 019 – 6142
Document as follows:

a) Rondeau provides refuge for more than 80 species at risk (the highest found in any Ontario Provincial Park) and more than 300 significant plant species. The cottages and associated activities are harming the park’s rare and endangered wildlife and vulnerable forest, wetland, dune and savannah ecosystems.

b)The continued presence of cottages at Rondeau reflects a missed opportunity to advance protections of the park’s ecologically significant areas, which includes an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area, a Provincially Significant Wetland, and an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest.
c) The recurring extensions of cottage leases threaten the ecological integrity of the park ecosystem, contrary to the commitments and intentions of the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act.

c) The government’s own reports document the inordinate harm that these leases inflict through the killing of species (sometimes intentionally), physically damaging habitat and the continuous introduction of invasive species - impacts that spread well beyond the borders of their leases.

e) Parks are dedicated to the public, everyone should have equal access to the many benefits they provide, not just privileged cottagers. Yet the cottagers occupy 67 percent of the park’s Lake Erie Shoreline.

Thanks for the opportunity to make comments.