Report urges greater ties with farmers

Thursday, March 10, 2011

by PAT CURRIE

Closer relations with neighbouring farmers need to be established to flesh out a mammoth report on the effectiveness of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and health of the Oak Ridges Moraine assessed by the Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation, Lisa Turnbull, program manager for the foundation, said Friday.

The eight-section preliminary report, spelling out the effect of 177 projects on which $50 million was spent by the foundation on studies and conservation efforts since 2002, was delivered to all Ontario MPPs Wednesday and made public Thursday.

Reaction and comments to the preliminary report will be used to reinforce the message in the final report, to be issued in June, the foundation announced.

The study was confined to properties on the 186,000 hectares of the Oak Ridge morraine, a sandy, partially forested ridge stretching for 160 kilometres across south central Ontario northeast of Toronto. It did not include adjoining farms or those that straddle the study area boundary, Turnbull said.

"We didn’t have the flexibility to devote funds specifically to those properties, even though they are all connected to the same eco-system," she said.

The province enacted the Oak Ridge Morraine Conservation Plan in 2002 to protect the morraine, its swamps, forests and wetlands, from the ravages of urban sprawl. The morraine, left by the retreat of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago, is the source of 60 different rivers and streams.

More attention will be focused on farms in the final report, Turnbull said. BF