The forests of northeastern Ontario have filled the palettes of Canada's most famous painters, and the hearts and imaginations of the province's sons and daughters for generations, both north and south. These same forests have fed the mills and filled the provincial coffers for more than a century, with the axe making its way west and north and then giving way to first the chainsaw and then the fellerbuncher.

Northeastern Ontario is host to sizeable portions of two of Canada's eight forest regions - the Boreal and the Great Lakes St. Lawrence.

James Bay Lowlands Boreal Great Lakes St. Lawrence Deciduous

Ontario's Boreal forest is part of a band of forest circling the northern globe, stretching from the northern limits of the Great Lakes St.Lawrence forest to Hudson Bay. The Boreal forest in Ontario contains nearly 38 million hectares of productive forest land, with roughly 40% in northeastern Ontario. With the dominant species of white and black spruce, jack pine, balsam fire, trembling aspen, and white birch, the Boreal forest is a fire-driven ecosystem; the forest species and the mosaic of forest communities are greatly influenced by the size, intensity and frequency of fires that have burned across the landscape. Fire suppression and extensive
cutting are two human influences which have shifted the course of forest succession over much of the boreal landscape.

The Great Lakes St.Lawrence forest region occupies the central region of the province, with the greatest concentration of the forests occurring north and east of Lake Huron in northeastern Ontario and in a Great Lakes - Boreal transitional zone from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances in the northwest. The region is 22.3 million hectares in size, with the majority of it found in northeastern Ontario. Dominant species are red and white pine, red and white oak, hemlock, white birch, yellow birch and ash, with maple as the most abundant tree.

Two major forces are at work in Ontario's forests, each with a common master: the unquenchable industrial thirst for fibre. The first force, fire suppression, has been in effect for the last 80 years, and its effect is perhaps less easily measured. The second force, the mechanical "harvesting" of trees for fibre, has been in place for only the last few decades, and its effect is enormous. In combination, these two forces have changed the face of the forest. For example, in the boreal forest, spruce has dropped from making up 18% of the forest to only 4%, while hardwoods have jumped from 6% to 19%. In the Great Lakes St. Lawrence, white pine has been reduced to less than 2% from its pre-industrial estimate of between 30 and 40%. Key conservation challenges are the retention of undisturbed tracts of forest land, maintaining an appropriate mix of age classes, and in particular older age classes or old growth forests, and special attention to species which are particularly diminished or at their northern range, such as white pine, hemlock and yellow birch.

Increasingly, industry calls the shots on the publicly owned land in Ontario. In 1985, 58% of crown land was licensed to the forest industry; by 1993, the number was 70%. The provincial government's current goal is 100%. This newest transfer of public lands to corporate control was made possible by changes to made under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, passed into law in 1994. A tool was created for transferring the responsibilities of the Ministry of Natural Resources for planning, inventories, monitoring and silviculture to the forest industry. Called "Sustainable Forest Licenses", these new instruments give more responsibility to industry, but also more control.

In the same year that the Crown Forest Sustainability Act replaced the Crown Timber Act, an almost decade-long environmental assessment hearing concluded in April 1994 with 115 conditions being placed on the management of crown lands for the production of timber. A key condition of the "Class Environmental Assessment of Timber Management on Crown Lands in Ontario" was the establishment of "Local Citizens Committees". These advisory committees, appointed by the District Manager for the Ministry of Natural Resources, are standing committees made up of a variety of "stakeholder" interests, with the stated purpose of communicating local interests during the timber management planning process, increasing the effectiveness of

the public consultations related to the timber management planning process, participating in the development of Plan objectives, monitoring the implementation of the Timber Management Plan, and providing other advice to the District Manager related to the plan.

The experience of local people sitting on these committees and representing environmental or natural heritage interests has been varied, as have been the committees' structures and operating styles, but some common threads weave their way through this citizens' experience: limited access to independent expertise, little or no exposure to provincial policy or science discussions via the local advisory processes; and committees which are usually heavily weighted, in terms of their overall composition and representation, in favour of consumptive

uses and industrial control of the public forests. There is a minority of members on each committee who represent non-consumptive users or viewpoints, and these individuals are often under great pressure to perform, not only under difficult social dynamics but also beyond what they frequently feel to be their own technical, policy or scientific expertise. Yet these individuals, along with the small percentage of the public who actively participate in forest management planning processes, have an important opportunity - and responsibility - to achieve the highest standard of care possible for the 88% of the forested landscape which is available for industrial exploitation.