GORE BAY—With concerns raised that its Natural Heritage System Strategy is not all encompassing and needs more work, especially to include all wetlands on the Island, the Manitoulin Planning Board (MPB) has deferred consideration of approving the strategy for a couple of months.
“I think the Natural Heritage System Strategy document that you are proposing (for approval) is a great piece of work, but it is not done,” stated Judith Jones, an ecological consultant with Winter Spider Eco-Consulting.
Ms. Jones indicated that much of the coastal wetland mapping in the strategy is not correct, and many of what are defined and mapped as coastal wetlands in the strategy do not meet the definitions (although within one kilometre of the coast) as they don’t have water connection to Lake Huron and are not connected to wetlands on the shore. “If a defined wetland on top of an escarpment is not getting water from a lake it cannot be a coastal wetland. A coastal wetland has to be joined by a lake.”
In order to avoid having to determine which wetlands qualify as coastal, she recommended that the strategy should include all the other wetlands (OW) on the Island, as it will be less confusing to the users of the policy who would not understand why some wetlands are shown in the strategy and some aren’t. “I feel strongly it is important to show the other wetlands as well,” said Ms. Jones. “Without other wetlands included in the strategy we would be leaving out the biggest drivers of the ecological functioning of the landscape, and the purpose of the Natural Heritage System Strategy is to allow the planning board and users of the policy to consider impacts to the landscape as a whole.”
“It is important that the other wetlands are included as well,” said Ms. Jones. “This is a big omission in the strategy and needs probably three or four more days of work.”
“A lot of linkages are missing, because the other wetlands are not shown,” said Ms. Jones. She explained that many of the linkages shown are not correct or are artificial, being added so that a non-coastal wetland might be mapped as coastal. She noted that these problems can be corrected by showing all the OWs and the linkages between them, where those exist.
“The other thing is that it is important that this policy be a solid, good piece of work, and the mapping must be as accurate as possible,” said Ms. Jones. “If not, the planning board is going to be challenged on every application it receives. The mapping has to be as solid as it can be,” she said, adding that a document should be prepared that sets out the methods used to map each type of feature, including where the data is based on and what criteria or steps were used to determine the shapes and locations of the features and lines. “By doing this the planning board can go back to this information and determine the reason this was done.”
Ms. Jones suggested the board not adopt the strategy as it requires a little more work to make it concise and accurate. She indicated she put her comments into a written document, but the planning board members have not had the chance to read them because the comment period for the NHS had only closed the day before.
“I’m not a professional but it makes sense to me what Ms. Jones said,” stated board member Dan Osborne, of Gore Bay.
Tim McKinlay stated, “I don’t have time to digest all of this right now,” he said, proposing that the board defer passage of the proposed strategy at the public meeting last week to a future meeting.
A natural heritage system is an “ecologically based delineation of nature and natural function, a system of connected or to be connected green and natural areas that provide ecological functions over a longer period of time and enable movement of species.” Natural heritage systems encompass or incorporate natural features, functions and linkages (also referred to as “corridors”) as component parts within them and across the landscape. They also enable the linking of different landscapes.
Although the MPB did not discuss it at the meeting, there was also a letter of concern forwarded by Robert Barnett, executive director of the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy (EBC) which outlines some of the same concerns raised by Ms. Jones.
The MPB members agreed to defer consideration of passage of the natural heritage system strategy until a meeting in January.
“I think we should wait until the next meeting,” recommended Mr. McKinlay.
“I agree there is a lot to digest,” said Rob Brown.
It was pointed out the Official Plan for the District of Manitoulin was adopted by the MPB by bylaw and approved by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on October 29, 2018, subject to several modifications including, ‘within three years after the approval of the Official Plan, the MPB shall prepare an area-wide natural heritage system strategy.’
A natural heritage system informs and supports land use planning and resource management while providing a strategic focus for restoration, stewardship, securement and the conservation of biodiversity. It also serves to limit landscape fragmentation, mitigate the effects of climate change by facilitating migrations to more suitable habitats, facilitate the maintenance of ecosystem health resilience and enjoyment/use by humans and provide eco-system services such as clean air, flood attenuation, erosion prevention, and productive soils.
