MY opinion of ONTARIO…

MY opinion of ONTARIO WETLAND EVALUATION SYSTEM CLASSIFICATION CHANGES 


REMOVE THE FOLLOWING ITEMS FROM BILL 23

• DO NOT: Permanently remove the OWES from the Provincial Policy Statement which mandates the conservation of wetlands that are considered provincially significant;

▪ DO NOT: Eliminate MNRF’s involvement in training and approving Evaluators so that The MNRF will no longer offer assistance to Evaluators.
• DO NOT: Eliminate points for “Endangered” and “Threatened” species.
• DO NOT: Eliminate wetlands that provide reproductive habitat for an Endangered or Threatened species from the scoring system. No points allotted for Endangered or Threatened species under this section (i.e. OWES section 4.1.2.1 to be deleted);
• DO NOT: Remove “Wetland complexes” (groupings of wetlands that are considered a single contiguous wetland) from the OWES.
• DO NOT ALLOW THIS: Evaluators will be permitted to re-score and re-map single wetland units that are part of a previously evaluated wetland complex (with the exception of closely grouped wetlands);
• DO NOT: Restrict the use of results of wetland evaluations, i.e., wetland evaluations could no longer be used by conservation authorities to provide technical advice to municipalities or used by the MNRF to manage and conserve fish, wildlife, land and other resources and to inform stewardship and incentive programs;

Recommendation: That the province re-engage the Conservation Authority (CA) Working Group and work with the working group to determine the unintentional negative implications of these proposed changes, and develop better alternatives, prior to proceeding with current proposed amendments.