MNR explores long term exemption for agriculture from habitat protection provisions

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is seeking comments on a plan to continue agriculture’s exemption to the Endangered Species Act’s habitat protection provisions for the bobolink and eastern meadowlark for 14 more months.

The current exemption is due to expire in October but under the ministry’s proposal, it would be extended until December 2015. That will give the ministry time to consult the public and stakeholders on the development of a protection and recovery plan for the two ground nesting bird species. It will also give the ministry time to evaluate the Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark Round Table’s recommendations.

Among the recommendations of that advisory group, made up of farmers, conservation group representatives, along with the industrial and development sectors, is an “integrated solution package’ that includes a 10-year extension of the current exemption for agriculture, it says in the ministry’s notice on the Environmental Registry.

The ministry is actively considering the recommendations in the round table’s report, the notice says.

Mark Wales, Ontario Federation of Agriculture president, says “they’re trying to figure out how to implement the 10-year exemption so the 14 months is just buying them some time to finish that process.”

The 14-month extension “gives them (the ministry) plenty of time to then put in the 10-year exemption for agriculture,” he says, noting the 10-year exemption for agriculture is the only viable solution. “There is no other option.”

The ministry’s notice says hay and pasture lands provide the greatest percentage of bobolink and eastern meadowlark habitat in Ontario. In two previous regulations, the Ontario government gave an exemption period of about three years. The exemption means the protection provisions of the Endangered Species Act do not apply to agricultural operations for bobolink and meadowlark habitats.

Comments are due by June 2. BF