Parks are the pride and joy of small towns. They sustain visitors that bring money into the community and they add to the healthy environment that people live in. Manitobans overwhelmingly support more parks and protected areas, but there are a few loud voices fueling fear of new land designations through misinformation. 

The Manitoba Wildlife Federation (MWF) is the organization which looks after the Hunter’s Safety database in Manitoba. They receive government funding and have an exclusive contract with the province to maintain a mandatory registration program. On the side, however, they’re running a misinformation campaign in rural Manitoba trying to stop folks from supporting nature protection.

MWF’s bad-faith consultation complaints

The MWF is causing a ruckus about not being consulted on the establishment of protected areas, saying Indigenous communities are being consulted too much. Just let that sink in for a minute. It is an astonishing act of bad faith to lay concerns about protected areas on Indigenous communities who are expressing a desire to care for Mother Earth in their territories. But what turns the MWF messaging into anti-Indigenous racism is the fact that they do not believe in protected areas. So they’re complaining about Indigenous communities and consultation. That is something to be ashamed of.

Articles the MWF published last year falsely state that we do not need protected areas, and there is no scientific basis for protected areas like the Seal River. This is a flat out lie. In one post, the MWF talks about a 2020 plan to preserve 30 per cent of the planet like it’s some UN conspiracy, but they fail to mention that the entire world came to Canada in 2022 to sign the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. 193 countries said it’s a requirement to preserve 30 per cent of lands and waters. Scientists everywhere back this up.

Everyone over 30 has a story about how the areas they grew up in have changed. The forests that they walked in are now suburbs, the little pockets of wilderness that sent their imaginations wandering have been overtaken by development. For the MWF to claim we don’t need to designate land for preservation is a failure to recognize the reality we live in. The forests you like to wander are going to be logged or developed. We’ve all seen it happen.

Misinformation Targeting Rural Manitobans

In the spring of 2025 the federal government announced funding in Manitoba for protected area designation and research along the Little Saskatchewan River. Within days of this public announcement, the MWF were out stirring up anger in rural communities about federal funding on biodiversity and the designation of lands. The loud minority forced a halt to the project, the protection of more nature and the spending of federal dollars in the province. It truly was a lose-lose for the people of Manitoba. 

The impacts to moose populations of logging and forest fragmentation, as well as the loss of forests on private land, are never discussed by MWF. But for someone who has worked for decades on public land policy, we know these are the greatest drivers of collapsing moose populations. The MWF’s racism quickly rises to the surface when they blame Indigenous hunting instead. How many op-eds did they write asking the big American logging corporation to stop clearcutting and leave the forests standing? If MWF wanted to increase moose populations for hunting, that’s what they’d be doing.

Protecting nature protects rural Manitoba

The MWF is using a false dichotomy between environmental groups and rural folk, saying rural folks don’t need protected areas. But people in the country know the environment is changing fast. The number of bugs hitting the windshield on a summer night has noticeably dropped. Bird populations are way down. We should be scared of the changes we’ve wrought. 

Just as climate change catastrophes are increasing, so are biodiversity losses. Because MWF is loud in rural towns doesn’t mean they’re right. In the push for more protected areas, they’re flat out wrong.