The Partnership for Public Lands' research on economic trends in the resource sector and community economic development came together in this document, which we submitted to the government of Ontario and the people of Ontario. The ideas outlined in this submission were quickly adopted by the government and became a fundamental part of its initiative to resolve the impasse Lands for Life had reached. The result was a huge increase in the protected areas system in the Lands for Life area.

Now is the time for Lands for Life to unlock the economic potential of Northern Ontario -- benefitting its communities while protecting our natural heritage. It is a chance to show leadership and vision while viable alternatives still exist. There are three steps to achieve that potential:

1. Secure 12% more land to complete the permanent protected-areas system,1 to protect biodiversity, our heritage and create job opportunities.

2. Enhance forest management to ensure no reduction in total woodflow to mills.

3. Create 6,000 to 10,000 new jobs through enhanced forest management, manufacturing of value-added forest products and expanded eco-tourism and service industries.

Recommendations

The Government has recommendations from the three regional Round Tables. Despite hard work and dedication by the Round Table members, major issues and land allocations remain unresolved. Preliminary public reports and discussions with Round Table members suggest that these recommendations fall far short of fulfilling the promise and mandate of Lands for Life. To build on the Round Tables' work and move the process toward a successful conclusion, the Partnership recommends the following to the Government of Ontario:

1. Confirm the intent to complete the protected-areas system by placing interim protection on all the areas recommended by the Round Tables plus the candidate areas recommended by MNR and the Partnership. We estimate that this will reduce the area available for logging by 6.3% and will require an equal area with no commercial logging potential ; bogs, rocks, water and small islands. However, wood flow to mills will be maintained by increasing the productivity of the remaining production forest through enhanced forestry practices, as described in this submission.

2. Create a small, very senior, credible, focused, time-limited work group to resolve the key issues related to forestry, protected areas and tourism, and agree on a framework, principles and process to resolve details. The work group should have a tight time line, perhaps 6 weeks, and the following firm requirements from the Premier:

- 15 to 20% of the region must be protected and the protected-areas system completed

- Total wood flow to mills must be maintained or enhanced

- Northern jobs and opportunities must increase

Should the work group fail to reach consensus, the government would make a decision in the public interest. This approach should provide the key ingredients for success: specific requirements, decision makers at the table and incentives to compromise.

3. Encourage collaboration between other interested parties to resolve the remaining issues, such as mining claims in provisional protected areas, concerns and interests of First Nations, and enhancement of hunting and fishing opportunities.

Why This Leadership Is Needed

Because of problems with the process, the Round Tables have reached an impasse and key issues remain unresolved. The recommendations fall far short of the government's stated objectives. They reflect confirmation of the status quo at a time when resource-based employment is declining and Northern communities need more jobs and better opportunities.

• Northern "primary-extraction" direct employment (mining, logging-excluding mills, fishing, trapping) is declining: 48,000 in 1981, only 27,200 in 1997, a decrease of 43% 2.
• Total direct forest-industry employment has declined despite an increased rate of cut. Employment declined from 83,500 in 1989 to 63,300 in 1994, a drop of 24%. During the same period the volume cut increased 15% 3.
• A further decrease in Ontario's forest-industry employment is expected according to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association.

On the other hand, there are some positive opportunities:

• Tourism employment in the North is increasing ; 34,000 in the latest report, up from 30,000 in 19964.
• Outdoor tourism is a large and growing industry with a major sector that is attracted to wilderness. Wilderness is a scarce and increasingly valuable resource that Northern Ontario can protect and promote.
• The investment climate for the Ontario forest industry is favourable 5. There is an opportunity for a fresh approach with new ownership. In the past year, Domtar purchased E.B. Eddy, and Bowater and Weyerhaeuser bought Avenor assets.

Consequences of Failure

Lands for Life is expected to complete the protected-areas system, protect tourism employment, provide certainty for the forest industry, and enhance fishing and hunting opportunities. A decision that does not deliver on these expectations would represent broken promises to important constituent groups and the failure of a highly promoted public process. Instead of a strong balanced achievement, the result will be seen as a corporate victory over the popular desire for more parks and wilderness. According to Oracle polls (1997, 1998), more than 80% of the public in the North and South believe that protecting 20% of the land is "just right" or "not enough"6

The fundamental issues will not go away. The conflict will escalate as the last roadless areas are cut and long-term tenure agreements are discussed. Moderate conservation organizations will be pressed by their members to become more strident, and extreme groups will gain public support leading to further legal action, disputes in the woods and international campaigns such as those experienced by British Columbia's forest industry.

Leadership is needed to fulfill commitments, realize the positive potential of Lands for Life and head off the prospect of disputes, uncertainty and polarization. Oracle polling shows that the public would recognize these decisions as strong, positive environmental action by this government.

Northern Realities

The Partnership recognizes that a healthy social and natural environment is seldom achieved in impoverished communities. Consequently, we propose an approach that balances environment, economy and community considerations to realize the potential of Lands for Life.

• The forest industry is a very important economic contributor to Northern communities ;so maintaining total wood flow to mills must have high priority.
• Mergers and automation in the forest industry will continue to reduce the number of administrative, logging and mill jobs ;so another priority is to find new employment.
• It is impractical to "share" all the land with a dominant land use like logging. Industrial activities such as logging are incompatible with wilderness tourism, certain forms of recreation, scientific and biodiversity objectives ; so special areas must be set aside to exclude those industrial uses and capture other values and economic opportunities.

The Partnership Proposal

As described earlier, the Partnership's proposal consists of completing the parks and protected-areas system, maintaining total wood flow to mills and creating new jobs.

Complete the Protected Areas System

The Partnership recommends the Candidate Protected Areas described in Appendix A (attached). Details and summaries for each candidate are available from the Partnership. Identification of these candidates resulted from a year-long process, including:

• Analysis and mapping using data supplied by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Northern Development and Mines.
• Application of protected-areas science to identify potential candidate areas.
• Public review and local expert comment on potential candidates at workshops across Ontario, and changes to reduce conflicts with other resource users.
• Refinement and submission to the Round Tables and the Minister of Natural Resources.

These candidates provide representation from every site district and region, including sites of sufficient size to protect wildlife and accommodate natural processes, including fire. They also embrace areas of outstanding scenic and historic value. Consequently, they provide both representation of natural habitat and additional opportunities for world-class nature and adventure tourism.

Maintain Total Wood Flow to Mills

The Partnership recommends that total wood flow to mills should be maintained or enhanced. There is no suggestion of losing or sacrificing existing forest-industry jobs. The Candidate Protected Areas recommended by the Partnership are expected to occupy an additional 12.7% of the Lands for Life area. However, many of these areas are covered by water, rocks, bogs or other areas not suitable for logging. We estimate that about half of the desired area has no commercial forestry potential and consequently the reduced area for logging would be approximately 6.3%.

In order to maintain or increase total wood supply to mills, the Partnership agrees with prominent industry analysts that short-term changes can be made to prevent decreases in total volume. Medium to longer-term changes could be made to increase overall wood availability.

In the immediate future, a combination of changes to harvest and regeneration strategies, taxation incentives and changes to the "stumpage" fee formula will stimulate increased wood flow from a smaller area of productive forest land. For example, wood-supply specialists suggest that enhanced forestry practices, such as spacing, thinning and multi-entry cutting, could produce a 30% increase in commercial wood volume from the best 30% of the forest sites. This measure alone could offset a 9% reduction in productive forest area to make room for expanded parks. In the medium to longer term, afforestation of marginal private land, increased wood quality, fibre substitution, investment in value-added manufacturing and other mechanisms can lead to more wood flow and more employment throughout Ontario.

The short term offsets are known to be practical now. Field observations and forest-industry presentations to the Senate Sub-Committee on the Boreal Forest (Oct 8/98) suggest that enhanced silviculture is practical now. We believe that increased production will happen regardless, but may need administrative arrangements to induce early investment. Increased forest productivity means maintaining current wood flow to mills and no net loss of forest-industry jobs due to new protected areas. Offsetting job loss due to automation and mergers is another matter, but this can be addressed by creating new jobs in the forest, tourism and service industries.

Create New Employment

It is essential to increase the number of jobs and diversity of employment in the North to ensure healthy communities and prosperity. There are three main opportunity areas: the forest industry, the tourism industry and other opportunities. None involve sacrificing existing forest jobs since wood flow to mills will be maintained.

Forest Industry Opportunities
The number of forest-industry jobs depends on many factors, including market conditions, product mix (pulp or veneer), degree of automation and the intensity of forest management. Enhanced silviculture, spacing, thinning, and multiple-entry cutting systems can increase sustainable wood flow to mills and provide some additional jobs ;so it is possible to produce more wood and jobs from a reduced forest area. The extra forest tending necessary to offset the expanded protected areas should create ...

1800 additional Northern jobs
(800 direct, 1000 indirect 7)

Specialty products such as windows or paddles command higher prices and normally require more work for each piece of wood cut than commodities like pulp. Forest certification and sustainable operations along with protected areas are factors of growing importance in the global marketplace. Completing the protected-areas system will help Ontario manufacturers qualify for this business, whereas failure will handicap our sales. Administrative arrangements, such as access by local entrepreneurs to wood for value-added products like paddles or furniture, can assist local job creation. The Partnership is prepared to work with the forest industry and Ministry to identify these opportunities.

Tourism Opportunities
In 1996, more than 9 million people visited Northern Ontario tourism facilities and spent about $860 million. That spending supported 30,000 jobs in the North, including 5,000 direct jobs in the remote tourism sector 6. The first task of Lands for Life is to protect these remote tourism jobs from logging operations and roads. The best security for these jobs is to maintain adequate roadless areas around lodges and associated lakes. With an estimated 20% of these facilities in or near protected areas, this measure would protect...

1000 existing jobs

Adventure travel and tourism together form one of the fastest-growing industry segments in North America, outperforming the overall economy. Nature tourists comprise 15% of the travelling public or 2.4 million travellers annually with total annual expenditures of $3.1 billion. An unspoiled wilderness experience is the most important feature for the experienced nature tourist. Therefore, protecting representative and outstanding natural areas will provide the critical ingredient for a successful tourism industry. British Columbia and Nova Scotia have targeted this market. Ontario can use its central location and natural assets to capture a much larger share. The Partnership Candidate Protected Areas include high potential park-centred tourism destinations such as:

Woodland-Caribou/ Red Lake	North of Superior/ Nipigon Country	Missinaibi Wildlands
Lake of the Woods	Georgian Bay Coast	Killarney (expansion)
Algoma Highlands	Lake Abitibi	White Otter Lake

Once approved, these areas will be "centre pieces" for promotion through the recently announced Northern Tourism Strategy. That strategy is expected to generate 5000 jobs. The new world-class park areas proposed by the Partnership, combined with the government's Northern Tourism Strategy, should add 20% to the 1998 Northern tourism workforce of 34,000 or...

6800 more jobs

Other Job Creation Opportunities
Quality of life is an important consideration for the location of many businesses. Parks and wild areas attract "footloose" businesses that locate where employees can enjoy these special benefits. For example, a survey of incomes and employment 8 found that US National Parks support healthy rural economies in surrounding counties. Relative to forest product-dependent counties in Maine, counties near national parks had "higher incomes, lower unemployment, less poverty, a higher level of education and more employees in professional jobs..." It is reasonable to expect additional high-quality jobs in communities adjacent to the proposed parks and protected natural areas.

Summary

Lands for Life is a timely and important opportunity to make choices that will benefit Ontario and Northern communities. Despite hard work, the Round Table reports will fall far short of the mandate and will leave substantial issues unresolved. There are benefits in completing the mandate and serious consequences for failure. The Partnership recommends that the Government protect the candidates proposed by the Partnership as well as those suggested by the Round Tables and establish a work group with a short time frame to sort out the outstanding issues related to parks, forestry and tourism.

Total wood flow to mills should be maintained and any production-forest area transferred to protected areas can be offset by increasing forest productivity. The expanded protected-areas system should be the core of new tourism and service-based investment and job creation in the North. With assured wood flow, and the thousands of new jobs in forestry and service industries, the North will attract investment and create a more diverse economy. Under this proposal, Lands for Life will deliver what the polls show people want -- more parks and prosperity.

Endnotes and References

1 "Protected Areas" are Parks or Conservation Reserves, designations that exclude logging, mining, dams

2. Statistics Canada, HRDC Canada 1997 Review

3. Price Waterhouse. The Forest Industry in Ontario, 1991.Ibid 1994.

4. (sources MNDM tourism strategy June 98, HRDC. Review 1997)

5. Unlocking the Potential of Ontario's Forests, John Duncanson, 1998

6. Oracle Research: Opinions of Ontarions, August 1998, October 1997.

7. Rough estimate of work tending forest

-Total Production 1997 was 27,951,000 m3 (OMNR Wood Supply Committee 1997)

-Amount represented by 6.3% lost area: 1,760,913 m3

-Silviculture labour 1 person yr/ 2200 m3 harvested to increase mean annual increment from 1.6 to 3.2 m3/ha. 1,760k/2.2k = 800 person years of work. Using a multiplier of 1.25 [Lees, 1998], this equates to indirect work of 1000 per years.

8. Gateway to Healthy Economy: original source U.S. Census 1991

APPENDIX A

Partnership for Public Lands Protected Areas Candidates

APPENDIX B

Oracle Research: Opinions of Ontarians

Public-opinion polling by Oracle Research of Sudbury in August 1998 involved 1250 respondents across Ontario (results accurate to +/- 2.8%, 19 times out of 20) An 300 additional northern Ontario respondents were interviewed and those results are accurate +/- 5.6 %, 19 out of 20 times.

Question: Some environmental organizations believe that 20% of Ontario's publicly owned lands should be set aside as large protected wilderness areas for the conservation of special features such as old-growth forests, protection of wildlife populations, recreational enjoyment and remote tourism. The remaining 80 % would be available for the many uses of natural resources, including forestry and mining activities. Do you believe that setting aside 20 % of publicly owned land for wilderness protection is too little, just the right amount, or too much?

Province-wide: Too little or just the right amount? 86 %
Lands for Life Area: Too little or just the right amount? 81 %

Question: In some parts of Ontario, timber for the forest industry to harvest is now in short supply. At the same time, there are few remaining remote wilderness areas. In those parts of Ontario where timber is now in short supply, do you believe that setting aside 20 % of the publicly owned land for wilderness protection is too little, just the right amount, or too much

Province-wide: Too little or just the right amount? 86 %
Lands for Life Area: Too little or just the right amount? 82 %

Question: Would you support an Ontario government decision to protect Ontario's remaining wilderness areas:

Province-wide: Strongly or somewhat support? 90 %
Lands for Life Area: Strongly or somewhat support? 87 %

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