Photo: Daniel F. Brunton
Over two decades ago the Ontario government responded to pressure from environmental groups to end Algonquin Park logging by instituting an "out of sight, out of mind" policy. Narrow no-logging zones were created along water ways to hide the logging from recreationalists. Our eco-logical insights today ought to make this policy obsolete. If Algonquin Park is to protect Ontario's biodiversity for future generations the whole park must now become a no-logging zone.
Algonquin Logging Authority Seeks Eco-label to help Legitimize Algonquin Park Logging
The Algonquin Forest Authority (AFA) is an Ontario Crown agency established in 1975 in response to public pressure to provide more protection for Algonquin Park. The AFA is responsible for "forest management" and "harvesting activities" on 4,850 square kilometres of the park's total 7,600 square kilometres- the full extent of the park that is currently open to commercial logging activities. That's almost two-thirds of Algonquin Park!
The AFA's purpose is "to produce a continuous supply of forest products to the forest industry of the region through environmentally-sound forest management practices and in harmony with other Park uses and values."
The Wilderness Committee believes that commercial logging and wilderness preservation are fundamentally incompatible. But AFA bureaucrats argue differently. As public opposition to logging within the park has grown, the AFA has responded by trying to prove that logging is not really affecting the park's natural biodiversity.
Complex evaluations of age structures of the managed forest and academically-contrived indexes are used to bolster their claim that logging activities are compatible with biodiversity conservation. Currently the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is working on a "Vegetative Management Plan" to define specific management objectives and strategies for every zone in the park. But wilderness needs no human management. Natural processes unfold as they have for millennia.
The AFA hopes to have their logging of Algonquin Park certified by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) as one of Canada's first eco-friendly, sustainable logging operations. The CSA criteria, which legitimize clear-cut logging, are supported by Canada's large forest companies. Practically every environment group in Canada has condemned the CSA's criteria for eco-labelling of forest practices as inadequate. However, the logging done by the AFA is good, most being single stem selection. This kind of logging should be mandatory elsewhere--outside the Park. The AFA is a formidable foe to making Algonquin a genuine Wilderness Park.
