Take Action to Protect Kawartha Highlands Signature Site.

New legislation introduced by Minister of Natural Resources Jerry Ouellette could turn the Kawartha Highlands into a four-wheel drive playground rather than the provincial park recommended by the local stakeholders committee. The provincial government is proposing to designate the high-profile Kawartha Highlands Signature Site as a "Recreation Reserve" - a newly created designation that would emphasize creating roads and trails for motorized recreation and commercial activities such as guided commercial hunting. The new legislation says nothing about managing the area to protect ecosystems, species or habitats and clearly puts "use" ahead of "protection." Site

Please help send a strong message to Premier Ernie Eves that this approach is unacceptable. The Kawartha Highlands were designated as one of only nine Signature Sites across Ontario in recognition of the area's significant natural values, including remote lakes, sensitive wetlands, rare rock plain plant communities and old forests. Designating the area for intensive recreational use, including increased access for snowmobiles, ATVs, four-wheel drive vehicles, jet skis and motorboats, is the wrong approach. Worse yet, the government is also suggesting that this new development-focused designation could also be applied to many of the 215 Ontario's Living Legacy sites still awaiting official regulation. Site

Please tell Premier Eves that you oppose the designation of the Kawartha Highlands as a Recreation Reserve and support its designation as a fully operational provincial park, with the resources and tools to protect the area's natural character. Tell the Premier you are disappointed that his government is introducing weak new legislation instead of passing a stronger Provincial Parks Act. Remind the Premier that the Local Stakeholders Committee, with representatives from all parts of the community, strongly recommended full park status as the only effective way to protect the Kawartha Highlands and that this new legislation is a betrayal of the government's promise to protect Ontario's natural legacy. Site

Key points to emphasize to the Premier:
¥ The government should withdraw the proposed Recreation Reserve legislation;
¥ There is strong public support for full provincial park status for the Kawartha Highlands Signature Site;
¥ The government should be strengthening rather than weakening protection for our parks by passing a new Parks Act. Site

Please email, fax or write the Premier at:
Premier Ernie Eves
Legislature Building
Queen's Park
Toronto, ON   M7A 1W3
Fax (416) 325-7578
Email: webprem@gov.on.ca Site

You can also send a free fax to the Premier through our Wildcanada.net fax link
at www.wildcanada.net/ontarioparks.

Happy New Year Ontario Birders.

The following notice has been approved by Mark Cranford, the Ontbirds Co-ordinator. There is probably nowhere in the world where bird species are more at risk than the Philippines. Habitat destruction for mining, forestry, agriculture and urban sprawl has put 88 species of birds, including 60 endemics, on the endangered list. The Haribon Foundation, www.haribon.org.ph, the major environmental NGO in the Philippines has few resources to turn this situation around, but you can help.

Haribon has started a series of birding trips and workshops to educate the residents of the Philippines about the importance of biodiversity and species at risk, including birds. The endangered Philippine Eagle is their symbol. I had the opportunity to lead a group of young Haribon members on an urban birding tour of Manila in August 2002, however, half of them did not even have a pair of binoculars. (After all, the average wage in the Philippines is US$4/day.)

I am returning to the Philippines for work in mid-March 2003, and again in August 2003 and I would like to take 10 or 12 pair of used binoculars with me to donate to the Haribon Foundation. They would then loan them out to their members and use them in public education activities throughout the country. I have a pair that I am donating, and if you have a pair that you are prepared to part with your donation would be very much appreciated. Any quality or condition would be acceptable (one person on the urban birding trip had a pair of Zeiss binoculars that were of World War II vintage with a lens on only one side).

As I am President of the Friends of Point Pelee you could send the used binoculars to my attention at: Friends of Point Pelee, 407 Monarch Lane, Leamington, ON, N8H 3V4, or, if you are planning a birding trip to Pelee this Spring then just drop them off at the Nature Nook Bookstore in the Visitor's Centre. Please put your name and address on them so that Haribon and I will know where to send thanks.

Thank you.

Todd R. Pepper, General Manager
Essex-Windsor Solid Waste Authority
tpepper@ewswa.org