Parks are the keystones of wilderness protection. Our campaign is focused on park creation and park management based on ecocentric principles, as well as on maintaining natural connections between parks.
Major hydro-electric development projects are proposed for the Namakan River, which forms the western boundary of Quetico Park and acts as a direct landscape scale connection to Voyageurs National Park only 15 km to the west in Minnesota. The proponent is the Ojibway Power and Energy Group (OPEG), a partnership between the Lac La Croix First Nation and Chant Construction, which is seeking to improve economic opportunities for the First Nation.
CPAWS-OV has for decades opposed all industrial development within or adjacent to parks in order to maintain the ecological integrity of these core protected areas. Such a ban is particularly important in the case of wilderness class parks.
Quetico Park is Ontario’s flagship wilderness park. Hydro development on the Namakan, if approved, will set a dangerous precedent for the industrialization of wild rivers adjacent to other provincial parks, damage the ecological integrity and wilderness character of Quetico, threaten species at risk such as Lake Sturgeon in the Namakan and Quetico Park, and have serious negative effects on the critical biodiversity linkage between Quetico and Voyageurs National Park.
See further details in the Namakan Hydro document below concerning the projects and their potential effects on Quetico’s ecological integrity, wilderness values, greater park ecosystem and species at risk.
For many years, CPAWS-OV has worked to ensure that protected areas are managed in such a way that their ecological integrity is maintained and, where necessary, restored. To that end, the Chapter regularly makes submissions tocmanagement planning processes for parks, as well as submissions on proposed legislation related to protected areas. Additionally, the Parks Management Committee seeks to protect wild and wilderness areas. Currently the Chapter is involved in management issues for Quetico Provincial Park, and in small hydro issues on the Namakan River which is adjacent to Quetico Provincial Park.
Send an e-mail voicing your concerns to the Premier, with copies to the Ministers of Environment and Natural Resources, the Environmental Commissioner, Executive Director of Ontario Parks and OPEG at the following addresses. Ask that the projects be rejected, and that the government conduct meaningful discussions with the Lac La Croix First Nation to identify economic opportunities that preserve Quetico’s wilderness, ecological integrity, species at risk and unique connection to Voyageurs National Park.
Please feel free to download the following documents:
Header photo licensed under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons
The forest in the vicinity of Wolf Lake on the Chiniguchi River comprises the largest area of old-growth red pine in North America. CPAWS-OV is part of the growing Wolf Lake Coalition that is demanding that the government fullfill the promises made in Ontario's Living Legacy to keep the Wolf Lake Lands as a Forest Reserve until mining leases expire and that it then incorporate the lands into the Chiniguchi Waterway Park.
---CPAWS-OV's comments on the Ministry of Natural Resources proposal to downgrade the Wolf Lake Lands from Forest Reserve to General Use Area. [ PDF ]
---Toronto Star article from Dec 12.
To voice your concerns, write to:
Michael Gravelle
Minister of Natural Resources
minister.mnr@ontario.ca
