MNR decision will be costly

Severing the Forestry Division from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR)
and adding it to the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines is about as nonsensical
a move as Premier Dalton McGuinty's crowd could have dreamed up.

The forestry component of MNR (formerly the Department of Lands and Forests) has
been the mainstay of the organization. A great many other programs and policies flow
from forest management activity. It would have made far more political and
organizational sense to have moved the parks division of the MNR over to the Ministry
of Tourism. This would have had more political bang for the buck in helping those in
Toronto, who have nightmares over logging, sleep better.

The science-based management of forests, Crown lands, wildlife, fisheries and forest fire
control, are integral to one another. Pulling them apart for political expediency shows a
complete lack of understanding as to what makes things tick within the sphere of
integrated resource management.

In 1972/73, the move was made to meld the-then Department of Mines with Land and
Forests to become the MNR, but that marriage resulted in a quick divorce when mines
was pulled out and joined up with Northern Affairs to become Ministry of Northern
Development and Mines. That arrangement has worked quite well over the years. This
current move can only be seen as an attempt to destroy what was once a very proud
organization -- a move that will make the current inexperienced Minister Donna
Cansfield's job easier and create an impossible job for her heir.

No doubt the knowledgeable and experienced staff in the administration tried hard to
prevent this move. But when you have political appointees at the very top running things,
there is scant respect for what makes management sense.

The forests of Ontario -- about 100 million acres -- are province wide and comprise both
Crown and private lands; many of each category are in both the north and southern parts
of the province with most Crown land in the North. Legislation and policies that govern
forest management are not simply a Northern matter.

The cognitive decline being manifested by those responsible for this debacle will cause
chaos and administrative disintegration in the running of this provinces's natural resource
management systems, and only time will tell just how costly that will be to the people of
Ontario.

Ron P. Alton,