I am a member of the Ontario…

I am a member of the Ontario Nature Youth Council and one of the organizers of our new youth-led Bringing on Biodiversity Campaign, an initiative dedicated to the promotion and protection of biodiversity. I want to see laws and policies that respond to the growing biodiversity crisis, rather than threatening to accelerate it. Biodiversity not only provides us with services such as medicine and food, it is also our best mitigation against climate change. Therefore, I expect the government to respond to the climate crisis by conserving biodiversity. We are all connected and no amount of money gained from increasing deforestation will offset the loss of essential biodiversity that ensures we have a variety of organisms and healthy trees in our province.

The proposal claims to “promote stewardship and sustainability” through sustainable forest management while responding to a changing climate, but I am not convinced that this will be achieved. How can doubling the current amount of logging in Ontario’s forests, which are major carbon sinks, be considered an appropriate response to climate change? How can the creation of more logging roads, which contribute to habitat fragmentation, without commitments to set aside more forests for wildlife conservation be considered promoting sustainability? With the 15 million cubic metre surplus of wood cited in your proposal, expanding the forestry structure is an illogical step for Ontario.

Resource extraction and associated infrastructure such as roads are resulting in the loss of habitat for native species such as the woodland caribou, who rely on old growth coniferous forests. Woodland caribou are an umbrella species, which means that their protection would safeguard many other species. They also play important ecological and cultural roles for the people and ecosystems of Ontario. The increasing forestry road density is also contributing to the decline of woodland caribou through increased wolf predation. Forestry is obviously harmful to caribou no matter how "sustainable" you claim your practices are, which is why populations have declined immensely and are still declining despite the "underharvest" in current forestry areas. While provinces such as Saskatchewan, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and the Territories have made conservation agreements for this rapidly declining species, the proposed Forestry Sector Strategy in Ontario does not include transparent steps to ensure the sustainability of the increased harvest.

As youth, we are determined to change the world around us for the better and want to work with our elected representatives to ensure they make the right decisions. Once we change an ecosystem it can never go back to the way it was originally. The decline of caribou indicates the collapse of the entire boreal forest, a valuable ecosystem that and should not be sacrificed for short term economic gain. Ontario has already lost significant portions of its original forests. You can prevent further destruction and decide against this unnecessary and shortsighted policy change.