The Clear Cut
A deep dive into Canada’s approach to forest management. How does it work? What are the issues? What needs to change in order to meet our climate and biodiversity commitments? Hear from the experts in the line of fire, working to protect one of the country’s most valuable ecosystems.
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The Clear Cut
The Story Behind Canada’s First National Urban Park
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Rouge National Urban Park is Canada’s first national urban park—but its story is far from over.
In this episode, Jan and Dave take listeners behind the scenes of the decades-long effort to protect one of Canada’s most important natural landscapes. From paddling the Rouge to working alongside farmers, local advocates, and governments of every political stripe, they share the surprising story of how conservation became a shared vision.
They also explain why the proposed expansion of Rouge National Urban Park matters, how the Pickering Lands fit into the bigger picture, and why protecting nature close to where millions of Canadians live benefits wildlife, farming, climate resilience, and future generations.
Whether you’re passionate about conservation or simply curious about the green spaces in your own backyard, this conversation offers a fascinating look at how lasting environmental change actually happens.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- How Rouge became Canada’s first National Urban Park
- Why protecting nature near cities is more important than ever
- The surprising partnership between farmers and conservationists
- The history of the Pickering Lands and why they matter today
- How healthy ecosystems help reduce flooding and improve climate resilience
- Why ecological connectivity is essential for wildlife
- How everyday Canadians helped shape the future of Rouge
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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Rouge National Urban Park, Pickering Lands, Wildlands League, conservation Ontario, Ontario parks, urban parks, protected areas, Rouge Park, ecological integrity, wildlife conservation, nature connectivity, farmland conservation, biodiversity, species at risk, Pickering airport lands, Parks Canada, environmental protection, Greenbelt Ontario, Duffins Creek, Canadian conservation
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CHAPTERS
00:00 — Meet Dave Pearce & A Classic Dad Joke
01:49 — Paddling the Eramosa & Conservation in the Field
05:05 — Why National Urban Parks Matter
10:11 — The Story of Rouge National Urban Park
13:49 — Putting Nature First in the Rouge
18:29 — Building Public Support for the Rouge
25:07 — Expanding Rouge National Urban Park
28:58 — The 50-Year History of the Pickering Lands
33:42 — Why Farmland and Nature Can Work Together
38:29 — From a Proposed Airport to Protected Land
40:19 — A Historic Promise for the Pickering Lands
43:05 — Why the Pickering Lands Are Still at Risk
45:43 — Why Rouge Needs the Pickering Lands
48:23 — Road Ecology & Reconnecting Wildlife Habitat
55:26 — Connecting People With Nature Through Parkbus
58:40 — Making More Room for Nature
From Proposed Airport To Park
SPEAKER_03What happens when land meant for an airport becomes one of the biggest opportunities for nature, farming, and climate protection in southern Ontario? For more than 50 years, the Pickering lands have been caught in limbo, but now there's a chance to protect them for good by adding them to Rouge National Urban Park. Welcome back to the Clearcut. I'm your host, Jan Sumner, and today I'm joined by Dave Pearce, Senior Forest Conservation Manager at Wildlands Lake. In this episode, we're talking about the long fight to protect the Pickering Lands, the history of Rouge National Urban Park, and why expanding the park matters not just for wildlife and for forests, but for farmers, flood protection, and the millions of people living nearby. Dave also shares why urban parks are becoming such an important piece of Canada's conservation future, how farmland and nature can work together, and what still needs to happen to make sure these lands are truly protected. Because this isn't just about saving land. It's about deciding what kind of future we want to build and whether we're willing to make more room for nature before it's too late.
Meet Dave And The Kayak Story
SPEAKER_01Hi Jan. Fantastic to be back on the Clearcut podcast. I'm Senior Forest Conservation Manager for Wildlands League, and my role has morphed with the league a little bit over the years. I started out as a real forestry nerd and nag uh on forest companies and uh and on the government to follow their rules and improve on things in terms of conservation. Uh but over the years I've shifted that I'm now uh lead on our national uh our nature connectivity uh project, which looks at uh protection and connection in southern Ontario in and around the cities where most of us live.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thanks, Dave. Um and then I'm gonna get Dave to tell a little bit about himself by giving us what in our office we know is the true Dave, which is a dad joke.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh so um I think I told this one recently, so it's top of mind. I'm a bit skeptical scientifically about things, and I was skeptical of orthopedic shoes for a long time, but I finally got a pair, and now I stand corrected.
SPEAKER_03Yep, that's Dave in the nutshell. So no. The other things you should know about Dave is you always want to travel with him when you're out in the bush because he's the guy who's going to carry the gun and make sure you're safe. And even when you flip your kayak like an ED, he ends up saving you from uh not rapids, but just swifts. I still took my kayak just a couple of weeks ago when we were paddling the Aramosa in uh in in Guelph or just outside of Guelph.
SPEAKER_01To be fair, it was the first paddle in a while for both of us, and and I didn't think through all the safety precautions ahead of time, but it made for some good images.
SPEAKER_03It did it did, and maybe we'll include a couple of those so everybody else can have a laugh. But it was it was funny because I was in the water, which was it was a couple of weeks ago before anything we'd really had a warm spell. And I'd say the water was warm about that far down or warm ish. And then as soon as you got to the derriere uh position, it was freezing because I was floating on my back as I've been taught to do when you're taken by the rapids, so or the swifts. And so I was floating there, and Katie was leaning over in the canoe in the boat Dave had and going, Can I take your picture? And I'm like, have at it, Katie. Gotta give the staff as many uh opportunities to rib the boss as as possible. So Katie took uh lots of uh photos and we shared them on our socials, but uh, we'll maybe include a couple for people to have a good giggle. But yeah, Dave uh generally speaking doesn't flip the boss and uh make sure that she gets out when uh when she gets into trouble. So it was a a lot of fun. It was a great day on the Aramosa, it was beautiful weather. We had a fantastic paddle, and we try to understand the areas that we're um trying to protect, and we usually try to do that from both the land and the water, and sometimes from the air if we've got uh the capability to do drone or do remote sensing in in the case of Algonquin.
SPEAKER_01And just a bit more context about the Aramosa. So it is one of the headwater tributaries of this of the uh Grand River and flows into Guelph, where we have a project uh trying to establish a new National Urban Park in Guelph.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we were there working with people who identify turtles and help with turtle crossings and also uh with uh Urban Park Guelph, who we work with locally. So we often were working with local groups as we're working on protected areas or even on stewardship and restoration areas. So yeah, it was a pretty good day, but just as a vote of confidence, Dave's one of those guys that you always want to have on a trip and uh backing you up when you're maybe getting yourself
Why National Urban Parks Matter
SPEAKER_03into problems. So, Dave, um, let's switch to the topic of this podcast, which is really to talk about a project we've been working on for more than 10 years now, when we look back at some of the images, et cetera. But that's Rouge National Urban Park. And what's we hope is coming up in the very near future in the next few months is an expansion of that National Urban Park. It's Canada's first national urban park. Right now it's its only national urban park. They have a promise to, the federal government has a promise to create 15 of them. We are trying to tee up at least three, uh two to three more. Uh one Ojibwe uh shores in um in uh Windsor, the second uh the Guelph uh uh reformatory lands or the old reformatory lands in Guelph, and then potentially one in London, or uh we've heard that there are some groups uh organizing in Sudbury.
SPEAKER_01The concept of a national urban park is just super popular with uh with Canadian citizens across the country and municipalities. And um it's one way to further our um goals and commitments as a nation to uh protect uh 30 percent of of Canada. And it's not huge an area, but these areas in the south are incredibly rich in species and in species at risk because they're growing in the population, and it's where most people live, and they have the fewest, um we have the fewest uh or the smallest percentage of protected area uh in Canada uh in these areas in southern Ontario and and similar areas across the country. Um so they're incredibly important, and um each has tremendous uh potential and value. Uh Rouge is the first one, and we hope will expand. It's at the edge of the Carolinian forest. It has over 2,000 species uh and over 42 species at risk. Uh Ojibwe Prairie is um is a complex in Ojibwe, including Ojibwe shores, uh, but it's some of the last and best tall grass uh prairie and savanna in southern Ontario, with uh you know prairie species that we think of growing further west. There are quite extensive presettlement days in Ontario, and this is uh a remnant area in in right in pretty much the heart of Windsor that's been protected and preserved and needs to be protected further uh by uh uh establishing a national park. And then in Guelph, uh there's a wonderful opportunity of provincially owned land uh that was the former uh Ontario Reformatory uh lands and um an area again of sort of uh has been set aside for other purposes, and over time nature has come back in a big way and now has potential to be um a protected area and and to form a part in reconciliation because uh First Nations um uh formed the the bulk of the the people that were that were held there. Um and there's there's examples of them continuing their their culture in in the buildings in the form of murals, and it's uh it it's got a uh a support from the local uh indigenous community. So there's a potential for for reconciliation there, as there is in in all these lands. And they form a potential gateway to further interaction with the Canadian uh with the National Park System. So incredible value all around, species for humans, for climate. For example, in Windsor, um it's a place where it's really hard to get flood insurance because all the wetlands or many of the wetlands have been drained, much of the natural area has been uh urbanized or uh devoted to intensive agriculture. And the prairie lands there in this case, they just they're a natural sponge and they soak up the excess rain and to help prevent flooding and then help uh leak it out over time if there's a drought to help alleviate drought drought as well, which we're you know, we're getting climate and weather whip whiplash because of extreme weather and the climate. So these areas will help with with that as well.
SPEAKER_03One of the things that they all have, though, is trees, as you were mentioning. They all have trees, and certainly on this podcast uh on the Clearcut, we talk a lot about trees. And so maybe we could switch over to uh talk about Rouge, uh a little bit of our history on that, and then also um what we want to see. And uh no spoiler alert, it's uh we want to see the pickering lands added to the Rouge. But basically we can talk about uh we'll get into the the Pickering Lands, but let's start with the Rouge and how we got involved in it and why we thought it was a a great place to see a national urban park.
SPEAKER_01Yeah,
How Rouge Became A Real Park
SPEAKER_01so Rouge is is, as we said, is the first National Urban Park in Canada. And um uh efforts to preserve the Rouge and the Rouge Valley uh predate our involvement by quite a few decades, actually. Um a lot of the area was expropriated uh over 50 years ago to make way for an airport in uh North Pickering, an area uh that never materialized. And slowly the the uh vision for that airport uh uh contracted and kind of withered away, uh, but it provided opportunity of federal lands. Uh there were some uh provincial land and some municipal lands that um many local advocate advocates uh campaigned to save. Uh people over planes that became land over landings, and uh local groups campaigned to save these lands, and so slowly they got cobbled together. Uh pre-2011, I think they were sort of an uh ensemble of different ownerships and different management. Uh, I think the the Toronto Region Conservation Authority was kind of the unifying glue that held them together. Um but it wasn't until um the federal government um began a process. Oh yeah, it was 2011, the federal government at the time began a process, and with the agreement of the groups, they said it's too too complicated to manage under all these different jurisdictions and ownerships. Let's put it under under one um one agency. And that agency, everybody said, was Parks Canada. That would be uh the agency with the capacity and the expertise uh and the and the budget to manage all these lands. So slowly um lands started to be transferred, uh those that weren't already federal lands, over to the federal government. And um and there was legislation uh developed early uh shortly after I think it was first tabled in 2014 to establish a national urban park, the first in Canada.
SPEAKER_00Hey, are you liking the clear cut as much as we like making it? Your donation helps us bring more of these important stories to life. You can actually support our work by going to our website www.wildlandsleague.org slash the clearcut, or you can click the link in the episode description below. Your support means the world to us.
SPEAKER_03I'll just say that the the uh federal government, it was a conservative government at the time that decided to put the lands together, but the legislation that they had for it was inadequate for recognition as a truly protected area because it was trying to balance all of the different um uh desires like economic with um with uh uh nature, with social, with everything. And when you start to do that, then that sort of uh then it means nature usually loses because the economics kind of outweigh that. And internationally, protected areas are recognized if their purpose is to protect nature. You can still achieve uh goals for nature without having protection, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually designing the area for a nature outcome. So we got involved to help that along. And the two opposition parties at the time, both the the NDP and the the federal liberals, were saying that they if if elected, they would came into power. And one of them did get elected. It was the at that time, the Trudeau Liberals, and uh we helped them fulfill that promise and negotiated. I actually went out in a field with some farmers who were nervous about uh having nature as the as the dominant um objective, and uh they thought that this was just a play by the environmentalists to have them remove from the lands. And um, even though the lands had been expropriated, farmers had been leasing the lands for a number of years and had been farming there quite successfully. And so my job was to go out and have a conversation with them and say, look, that's not the objective, and I uh to have you removed from the lands, but actually have you contribute to the values that are uh natural here and to find a way that you can actually help the park. And so we had a very good conversation standing in a pair of gum boots in a in a field um that was a little bit soddened, sinking into it with two ministers and a few farmers and myself. And I just I promised them that if we if we could come to an agreement that we would uh stand with them and testify at committee and at the Senate and et cetera, et cetera. And so we we did all of that and finally got legislation um into that actually recognized the park as uh and has national urban park legislation specific to the Rouge now. And what's what's interesting now is subsequent uh superintendents have said, we're really glad you did that because it's allowed us to say no to some projects that really would have ruined the natural environment here. And so that's been a big plus. It also allowed the then uh minister of the environment, it was subsequently passed through two or three hands by that time, but Stephen Gilbo was the Minister of Environment when um the provincial government started to contemplate developing the Defin Rouge agricultural lands, which were adjacent to the Rouge. And that meant that under National Urban Park legislation, that Minister Gilboa could launch a study to see what the impact would be to Rouge if development happened just adjacent to it and specifically where it happened. And Dave uh led a big study on the Deference Rouge Agricultural Preserve with Kerry Gunson and wrote up here's here are the kinds of things that would happen if if this was uh was to occur, and we submitted those, and they were they were part of the the record of the federal government at least saying, look, this is going to be really damaging, especially to the site where we uh reintroduced landings turtles, which are an endangered species. And um, and so that development didn't occur. Um, and everybody was quite happy, especially the farmers who were now in the Rouge, they felt that the Rouge was actually protecting them. Currently, I'm very pleased to be the Rouge National Urban Park uh advisory committee chair, and that was a ministerial appointment, and we have some amazing people on that, including mayors, um, people from the city of Toronto, uh city of Pickering, Markham, Oxbridge, Stoweville. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01The other thing is, um, and looking back, it's kind of uh uh we're doing a bit of short form on how everything unfolded. But Anna Baggio, who was a guest on on uh several pre previous podcasts, uh I think most recently on Ring of Fire, Anna actually um uh coordinated uh the local environmental groups to keep everybody on side to keep pushing for the goal because uh uh you know people have different views on things. And uh so she she formed a huge uh had a huge role in that.
Making Conservation Too Popular To Ignore
SPEAKER_01Um one of our strategies to popularize the park and show politicians of all stripes how uh great the idea was. And I don't know who had the idea. Was it you, Jan, that had the idea of doing a paddle uh at the mouth of uh Rouge River, uh near Rouge Beach, uh, that would be open to the public. And this was all to um bring people out, uh promote the idea and the concept uh of the park as it was evolving. And we had politicians of all stripes come out and paddle. Um so and it was like hugely successful.
SPEAKER_03So Dave mentioned uh Landover Landings, and we've worked with a couple of iterations of uh uh Landover Landings, which is the local group. They're hugely influential and they're very good to work with. And uh I guess she sent us a picture just today, was it, that said essentially it's been 10 years. And here's a picture of me standing on a paddle board at your paddle, the Rouge event, 10 years ago. So so yeah, we actually have photographic evidence of our uh long relationship with uh land over landings.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the the significance of the 2018 paddle, I think it was just after uh around the time that the legislation got amended to include uh include ecological uh integrity uh as the primary purpose of the park. So uh that was a hugely that was a significant paddle for sure.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell For us, it's um we've been very dedicated to seeing this through. And um our job with uh as as environmentalists, like the the reason that we did the paddle and the reason I suggested doing something that would be a lot of fun and just very colorful and engaging and that people would want to be at was because if you can make something so popular they can't say no. That's what we wanted to do. I mean, some groups do protests. We're more in the business of how do we make something so popular, you just can't say no. And when Dave said we had uh politicians of every stripe, we had municipal politicians, we had provincial politicians, we had federal, we had uh mayors, we had all kinds of folks who who came out to this event. And we were, uh, I think personally and as an organization, very proud of the fact that we had every stripe of politician that you could imagine because we want, again, the goal is to make it as popular as possible. And um the media also follow the leaders, and you you can see some of the pictures on our website, and we'll we'll put some into the show notes for this as well. But the other thing that we were doing is growing the next generation of stewards. And so the kids who come out to this, and many of them were new Canadians, some there were some new Canadians who had not been in the country more than three months. And it was actually really fun to see their parents because their parents were terrified. Here they were doing something so totally Canadian, getting into a kayak or a canoe or just getting out on the water. This is like a really fun thing that a kid could do. And the parents are maybe coming from a country where they didn't have those experiences. And they were like my parents, they never had those experiences growing up in England. So they would have been absolutely terrified. Um, you know, before my mom passed, she was still worried about why why was I still doing these crazy things, you know? And so it like I know from personal experience that that terrifies immigrant parents. They're just like, This is crazy. What are you doing, kid? So yeah, we had uh a lot of fun with the kids and uh building that next uh generation of uh stewards for Rouge.
SPEAKER_01One way it wasn't successful, we we we never were able to make any money.
SPEAKER_03No, that's true, Dave. No.
SPEAKER_01That was that wasn't the goal, but you always, you know, as a nonprofit group, you're you're always looking for ways to make money, and we could just never made it happen.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's actually a good message, Dave, because let's let's put that pitch out there. If anybody wants to help us, we'd one of the reasons we were doing uh our paddle of the Eramosa is we were thinking maybe in the future, if we could get the resources together, we would really love to do a paddle the Eramosa. Having paddled it, it's really beautiful. And and I guess that's the thing that happened with Rouge. It's so surprising because every once in a while you can hear a car beep or a horn or wh whatever it is going through the uh um urban and rural landscape with you. But for the most part, you're just seeing birds and you're hearing frogs. So I would highly uh uh encourage anybody who wants to help us out with uh putting resources together for a paddle, the Aramosa. To help make it possible because we would love to do that. We would love to make the proposal in Guelph so popular that politicians were climbing over each other to make it happen.
SPEAKER_01We popularized the Rouge. We were uh helpful in getting an amendment. So ecological integrity is the the primary purpose. And then since then, this is the other thing about national urban products. The Rouge started quite small, with you know, in legislation, it was a small piece of land, and then pieces just kept getting added, right? So there was still being added. Still being added. Well, that's what that's my segue. That's my segue. Okay, sorry, Dave. Yeah. So there was there was Transport Canada lands got got added. There was municipal lands. Uh the Ontario government actually held back their contribution for a while because they didn't like the original legislation either. They they felt it was actually weakening instead of uh I mean, the whole idea was to make protection of the rouge that many people had worked you know decades on, make that protection stronger. And they felt, oh, what are we doing? And this is going to be weaker. So they withheld that that that land and then until the amendment happened, and then they transferred it. And now, um, I don't know, it's not hopefully not the final piece, because we always like to see things grow, but we have an opportunity to have Rouge grow by um something like 40% with the addition of the remaining Pickering lands.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and we will we'll have a map uh in the show notes that will show um uh show the context because not everybody's aware, and I'm still learning because it's a very busy landscape. Um this is the border of uh between Scarborough and Pickering, um and it runs from uh Lake Ontario up to uh Stoweville and northeast uh to the Oak Ridges Moraine. Um and so it's a it's a it's a big area. And it uh borders the Greenbelt, it borders the Duffin Rouge Agricultural Preserve, um, and uh the new Uxbridge Urban uh Provincial Park is in the process of being expanded and almost almost touches the Rouge. So it's a it's a really interesting nexus of a bunch of different things.
SPEAKER_03I think that's interesting is that the federal government started doing national urban parks and and getting promises out there to do 15. And I know that they're looking at ones in um Saskatchewan and Halifax and then uh Ojibwe hopefully will be one of the next ones. And there are a few others across the country that they're looking at, but they want to get to 15. What's interesting for me is that the provincial government in Ontario is now getting in on this, and they're they've just done the first provincial uh urban park um uh just in this area, which is again when we talk about uh one of the things about national urban parks is once you start to protect an area, it attracts more ideas and more people saying, what else could I add? How could I build upon this? And the one that the province has done can uh actually help with the um connectivity uh around uh Rouge and hopefully with the Pickering lands being added. So it's it actually opens up more dialogue and increases people's uh desire to do more in terms of protecting nature, including other levels of government, which is just fantastic.
Pickering Lands And The Airport Fight
SPEAKER_03So, yeah, let's move to the pickering lands. Uh let's start with a little bit of their history because that's uh a little more ragged. Again, they still have farming in those areas, but it was expropriated.
SPEAKER_01Expropriated uh 50. 1972.
SPEAKER_031972.
SPEAKER_011972. 54 years ago. 54 years ago. It was a larger area then for a airport in North Pickering and area. And then over the years, they kind of shrunk the concept. And so uh as Rouge was being established, they were like, well, we know we won't need this part for the airport, so we'll give that to Rouge, and we don't need this part for the airport. But they still had um a big chunk of area um uh set aside um for a proposed Pickering airport. And there were several studies, many economic studies saying it's not needed. Pearson, you know, is gonna handle any growth. There's other uh, or for years to come, there's other regional airports, you know. So we don't need another regional airport in in um North Pickering. Um and Landover Landing has kept up their campaign to have it um kept as farmland and and natural area. And um and we joined on and saying, you know what, it would be good to have it transferred to Rouge National Urban Park. And so um uh four years ago, we um we and Landover Landings and a bunch of other groups got together and we did a full page ad uh and a bit of a um essay on why this area should shouldn't be an airport, but it should be protected and it should be transferred uh to to Rouge Park. And farmers, farmers supported it, Landover Landings supported it. Many, many um other conservation groups got on board and individuals and signed on. Uh we had a big signature list. Um and it the ad appeared in the uh in the Toronto media, yep. Uh and in the Ottawa media. Um and um, you know, there's uh it I think it made some waves, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, we also, I mean, one of our jobs is to take that and show it to politicians and say, look, these are all the people that are concerned about this issue and want to see it resolved in a positive way. Um as I said, the lands had been expropriated in 1972. We still didn't have an airport. Many of these farmers were on year-to-year leases, and there was no um, there was no management of the land for nature. Nobody was trying to protect it so that nature did better year over year or in 10 years, etc. So um the idea was, well, if you're not doing an airport, why do you keep hanging on to these lands? And we we had a little bit of experience with this because we had also been helping the federal government to realize that they could transfer the port lands that they had um been designing to do a port uh it just on the shores in Windsor. And so when they were building the bridge, of course, now they didn't need the port. And it's like, well, why are you hanging on to these lands? Why not put them into um a protected area? And that's become part of the uh Ojibwe uh plan in um in Windsor, which we hope to see to fruition shortly. So we have some experience with how do you get Transport Canada to release these lands, or how do you get a government to say, yeah, let's let's move these over. So we started working on that. And uh, as you rightly say, Dave, we were working with all these other groups and we benefited from their many, many, many, many connections. And when we put this ad together, and we'll we'll include that in the show notes or a picture of that because it's really quite good. It talks about, I think, I don't know if we put all of this, but I remember seeing drafts of this where it talked about Gordy Howe was playing and the this uh the uh 1970s. The summits the summit series was happening. And yeah, you know, maybe that's really popular now because of heated rivalry, but you know, it was that kind of it was that kind of time, right? It was it was there was a lot of hockey going on and there was a lot of attention to that, and it was the time of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Trudeau I. And so this was like 50 years later, and we were calling on Trudeau II to release these lands and get them to be included in the park. And and the farmers were really on side. So we had a almost like a complete reversal from the first time where um we were working on Rouge and the farmers were highly suspect about creating a protected area with the farmland. And now they were like, yeah, no, let's get them part of the park so we can see more protection and we can actually get more um, I guess, security for farmland uh going forward because it's class one farmland. This is important land. It's you know, it's it's good food growing uh land. So it was uh and it's good for species as well. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe just um a little note on that, because uh sometimes there's some surprise that Environmental Group is supporting uh farming uh and and uh in a protected area. But these are special special circumstances where farming is uh not the the uh you know, all human activity has some risk and some uh uh impact on nature, right? But in this game, farming is not the the primary uh problem. It's it's urban sprawl, it's it's our human desire for convenient um uh business as usual subdivisions and uh and highways and strip malls and you know uh uh high speed rail. High speed rail, another one, you know, expanding highways. Uh these are all threats. And uh and uh and not necessary because uh um environmental defense and other groups have done wonderful work in showing there is no need to protect to to sorry to develop these lands, that there's other land that's already designated for development uh outside um an area that could be added to a national park. So there's no need to develop these lands. Um and farmland actually, um, if you think about uh if you have a hedgerow or a uh a forest next to a stream or a woodlot, the better neighbor is uh a farmer's field than rather than uh uh you know uh a parking lot or uh uh a data center or a distribution warehouse, you know. Um and you think think about, you know, just from common sense, if a a deer needs to move from one woodlot to another, they're not gonna go through um unless they're really pushed uh through a heavily urbanized environment, they're gonna pick the the more natural uh pathway. And the more natural pathway is farmland. So uh uh much better neighbor to nature for sure.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell Yeah, and there's some species that do really quite well uh with uh farmland, right? There's uh a few birds that do really quite well.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell So the farmland and and nature can work together. Um and and both need to be protected because this is this is the highest uh value farmland in in all of Canada, this type of it's class one farmland.
SPEAKER_03So yeah. And and just in case anybody's worried about it, you can I don't know if it's posted on the Rouge site, but uh Parks Canada is implementing uh agreements with farmers on longer-term leases, but also on how to manage lands so that they're helping nature uh more. So it's it's um and it's still a work in progress. Nothing is uh completed yet. It takes a lot to manage a national urban park, especially when you're amalgamating lands from all different kinds of uh previous landowners. And then how do you move that forward? And you've got 50 years of of I wouldn't say neglect, but 50 years of where the lands haven't been uh really purposefully uh managed over that time. And so this is uh a lot on Parks Canada to do. And um it's a it's a complex situation. Yeah. But they are managing and they are going to be signing agreements and getting farmers onto these uh management practices that will help nature overall.
SPEAKER_01Just a note on the complexity um and our experience in talking to Parks Canada in in you know, the experience they've had managing Rouge now for a number of years is it's very expensive. Um and so we're as well as advocating new lands being added to Rouge National Urban Park, we're all also saying they need the resources, they need the funding, because it is it is an expensive undertaking. And uh without those those resources, there's some reluctance to to take on that new responsibility if uh if uh if they can't be managed. So back to the Pickering Lands. Yes, I think. So we mounted that yeah, and it and the the the sequence of events, we mounted that campaign um uh four years ago. And then sometime in between, and I don't, you know, there's no direct link here, but uh you kind of alluded it to it earlier. The the Ford government uh proposed turning over uh parts of the Greenbelt to uh uh to development.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh and Rouge uh rate right adjacent to Rouge National Urban Park. So the minister, the federal minister at the time said, well, let's do a study to see how much impact this would be uh on the on the Rouge, because ecological integrity uh is important for the Rouge itself, but also the Greater Park ecosystem uh would be impacted by any development happening outside. Um so I mean we we definitely use that argument uh to say, you know, let's let's make Rouge as big as possible so to guard against any more um of these types of incursions or or adjacent development. And um uh I think uh we and other people were making that argument as uh as well as the fact that the airport was really not not necessary, not uh not uh a thing that had legs.
The No Airport Announcement And Relief
SPEAKER_01In uh uh January of 2025, uh it was the federal government announced that there would be no no airport. They uh um after 50 53 years at that point, yeah uh said um this is not this land's not needed for an airport, um, and we're gonna do something different with it. And um they announced um that they're gonna turn it uh over and and add it to Rouge National Urban Park. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was at a few of those announcements, and there were no less than five ministers who attended those announcements, plus every level of government uh and every level of citizen. And um what was interesting to me is we'd gone from the Rouge days of maybe farmers and environmentalists not being on the same side to in that room, it was at least 50%, maybe 60 or 70 percent farmers and uh environmentalists that I've known for many years from all across the spectrum, uh, and there were tears. People were crying because it had been a 50-year battle to take back the land and have farming continue and have access for farmers. And one of the ways to do that and not have and not be under pressure from development, but actually have it protected from development and have it be secured for farming and secured for nature was to add it to Rouge National Urban Park. And so there were people whose land had been stripped from them. There were people whose um now their kids were there because they remembered being on the farm and they remembered having that long if you don't have a long-term lease, you can't actually access equity to do improvements. So this has also impacted their livelihoods and their ability to to live and and and grow food. So it was it really touched me. And uh and Landover Landings did a separate event. I went to that as well. But the general feeling was just like this enormous, enormous sense of relief that finally justice was going to happen, that the lands were going to be returned, that they would be protected from development, that the farmers would be able to continue, they would get long-term leases, they could have access to equity, they could actually get back to doing the business of growing food. If you like listening to the clear cut and want to keep the content coming, support the show. The link to do so will be in the episode description below.
SPEAKER_00You can also become a supporter by going to our website at www.wildlandsleague.org slash the clearcut. And also make sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming platform. It would really help the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And when that announcement was made at the main event uh uh in the pickering lands, um there was a standing ovation.
SPEAKER_03Yes, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You had at least four ministers and other levels of government and and first nations were were there uh supporting and everybody erupted into cheers when uh it was announced that the vast majority of the pickering lands were going to be transferred to Rouge National Yeah Urban Park. Yeah. Um and that was uh that was January, late January 2025. Yep.
SPEAKER_03It's been over a year. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03And um should I hold this up now, Dave?
SPEAKER_01It's a good time as any.
SPEAKER_03Uh maybe just uh walk people through what this is, Dave.
SPEAKER_01Um so uh despite the the promises on that day and the eruption of cheers, um there there is a process, uh a necessary process to consult on this transfer of lands from Parks Can uh from Transport Canada to Parks Canada. Um however the the the vision of politicians uh it appears to us has been very um uh uh become less over that more than a year.
Keeping The Transfer Promise Alive
SPEAKER_01And so now uh there's proposals uh by neighboring municipalities, uh the city of Pickering, for example. Uh why don't we develop, you know, 2,000 acres of that, of that land? Um and the federal government is looking at different options, not necessarily transferring all the land to uh Rouge National River Park. And so we're we're trying to keep the momentum and the excitement and the positivity about transferring again, all of that land, the vast majority of it, it's already under under Transport Canada, just transfer it to uh Parks Canada, along with the the funding. So that what Jan held up was one of our um tools of of keeping that message out there. And so we uh we had an ad in the Toronto Star. Do you have the page number there?
SPEAKER_03Uh A6. It's at the bottom of that page. A6. And we'll we'll include it in the show notes and it's got a QR code, so it takes you directly to our page, but you can actually sign a letter and send it in to the government and say you're supporting this and you'd like to see it happen.
SPEAKER_01So we're trying to we're trying to keep the momentum up and uh the you know uh the opinion of um many, many people um uh is that that they should transfer the lands to the park. And uh as we said, there's there's land elsewhere for commercial and residential development. We don't need to uh develop these lands for those those purposes. We can save them for nature and for for agriculture. Um under the Rouge framework, which prioritizes nature but allows agriculture and other uses, other other cultural uh uses and and of course tourism, um visitation. Um but nature is the first priority because otherwise, how do you make decisions, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we need more room for nature, so we need to have the Rouge uh expanded uh by 40% by adding those lands and seeing it because once you expand it and you make it bigger, then it becomes more resilient. And with climate change and all the development pressure just outside, uh Rouge needs to be as resilient as possible. There's two more than 2,000 species relying on us and relying on us to protect their homes and habitat so that they can move about and do all the life uh life uh things that they need to do. And uh uh we need to add these lands as soon as possible and uh not do development there. There's l there's um an overabundance of development lands for housing and for other needs in this area. So it's not one of the areas where we're constrained in terms of land uh land.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell And it's it's the upstream um uh headwaters of of Duffin's Creek, uh which despite its name is uh in you know uh uh it's it's a fairly major uh watershed in uh in Pickering Ajax, um just just east of uh the Rouge watershed. And uh this is where the bulk of the uh tributaries of of Duffins Creek uh arise out of the Oak Ridges Moraine and and pass through uh the Pickering lands and then flow down south to Pickering and Ajax. And if these headwaters aren't protected in the state they're in now and get developed, then um you know you're gonna get more flooding uh you know, less the the land will be less able to absorb uh moisture and get more flooding downstream. Um so we've got that that ad out there. We've also, and as Jan said, we have an action center that will send uh letters to politicians reminding them of uh the promise of uh over a year ago and uh how much adulation they got. And uh we don't want to go backtrack on that. Um and we'd like to keep the keep the praise coming for good decisions um uh where it's warranted. Um and some of the other things we've been doing, we've been we've spent as much time out there. I know Jan moved to Scarborough basically so she could be close to the Rouge, so she could paddle. Um, and selfishly it's just a wonderful place to visit. But we've been able to uh through partnerships um do a few cool, cool things.
Road Ecology And Safe Wildlife Crossings
SPEAKER_01And we mentioned Carrie Gunson um uh in part. Partnership doing a report on the Duffin Rouge Agricultural Preserve a few years ago. But we've done uh Carrie Gunson is uh principal at EcoCare International, and she's a road ecologist, which Jan loves that term, uh, but it's basically how do how do you how do you stop animals from being smushed on roads? Um, or how do we make more room for wildlife um in and around our transportation systems? Uh so one thing Wildlands League and Carrie have done, we've worked together to um do road ecology workshops, uh, two of which have uh we've done in the Rouge, um, just right right in the middle of Rouge Park, um, hosted at a local uh church auditorium, and we've had uh two really good workshops there with uh 30 or 40 people in attendance both times, uh, where Carrie's gone over road ecology 101, how it's so important to identify where wildlife is being uh either directly hit and killed on roads or where they're not crossing. And and you're dividing uh habitat, and so wildlife can't get all the things it needs, right? And so, and then devising mitigation strategies to keep them off the road so they don't get killed, but providing safe passages so they can get through uh from one side of a road or a highway or a railway uh to the other. Um and so Carrie is an expert on that and has been uh uh sharing her expertise where she's worked on on many projects on that and how it can be done. And then we go out in the field and we look at spots where uh wildlife is being killed.
SPEAKER_03And so this is the part where I say Dave sees dead things. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01What movie is that from?
SPEAKER_03Uh Sixth Sense. Sixth Sense.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, and it's it's it is it's uh it's sobering and and sad to see these animals. Um but the thing is that what I found from hanging out with Carrie, if you don't see animals uh dead on the road, it means the animals are no longer there. So um in in many cases. Or on the good news side, there is mitigation and they've been able to to uh there's ways that they're crossing and and not getting hit. So um we've seen many examples, unfortunately, of turtles and snakes. Uh even where road mitigation has been attempted and hasn't been um uh done properly, um you know, animals are still getting hit. So uh we've seen uh ring-neck snakes, decay snakes, uh snapping turtles, painted turtles, we even there's even a long-tailed weasel uh right by a bridge. Uh but because it the there wasn't a barrier forcing the weasel to use the uh the bridge, which weasels are, I mean, they're almost as semi-aquatic as a mink, and they can, you know, navigate shorelines or water pretty well. Um, but it was, you know, it chose to go overland right across the busy roadway and um unfortunately got hit. Um so um yeah, and the other thing is we've we've seen is uh uh bear tracks in the northern part of the Rouge where bears were using uh a bridge um as a as a underpass to get from one side of the of a busy regional road to the other, and there were bear tracks where they're actually using that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Um so that's been cool work. And again, we'll put uh some stuff in the show notes to uh elaborate on the on the road ecology work we're doing. Uh the opportunity is because again, the these lands have been largely neglected or ignored in many ways. We talked about the farming, but also the infrastructure of some of these side roads, because why put money into it if we're gonna you know pave it all over and make um uh make uh you know landing landing strips and airports, you know, why why maintain these bridges? And so a lot of the bridges or a lot of the rural roads are are in disrepair. And so now there's decisions being made of do we repair these bridges, do we close a road here or there? Do we improve a road here because there's traffic, there's still going to be traffic going through these areas, and these roads are controlled and owned by the municipalities. So there's an opportunity every time you fix a bridge or fix a culvert or make a decision on if there's going to be a bridge, you that's a that's a connectivity and a road ecology decision that you can make and you can make it better. And it's that's the ideal time from a engineering and from a financial point of view. If you're fixing a bridge, why not put up barriers so animals can't cross the road? And you put up wing walls so they're kind of funneled under the bridge, and then you make the bridge, the area under the bridge, you know, slightly bit more amenable to animals so that they can cross at any time of the year. So you might put an artificial beach on one side so that during high water, even those animals that can't swim very well can still get through um things like that. And so uh again, there's a huge opportunity there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is about how to help the critters that live in the forest uh move move uh along a landscape that's uh been highly fragmented. And so it's it's a it's a very uh despite all my uh teasing, it's a very cool science and it has big impacts. And Dave has uh to take us out of the rouge just a minute, Dave has actually thought about uh national legislation to require any new infrastructure or any repairs to infrastructure to actually include uh a mandate to um consider and to put into place um successful um road ecology mitigation um uh attempts to to help wildlife uh be moving among the landscape that is uh fragmented by these roads and these uh linear disturbances. And and maybe I'll just also give a shout out to, I think it's Banff and Jasper have some of the best road mitigation strategies out there.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus In Ontario, highway um um Highway 69, Highway 11, where they've been twinned uh a lot of um species at risk there. And so there's been a lot of effort put in there to put in underpasses and and then uh only one case in Ontario, an overpass for for large, large animals.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and down in Windsor we have uh some areas, right? They've done overpasses, right? Really quite beautiful. You actually feel like, am I walking in a meadow? And it's like, no, I'm on top of the highway, but if you're a creature, it's actually uh a very uh good place to cross. So yeah, so that's some of the work that we've been doing in Rouge.
Parkbus Trips And Visiting Rouge
SPEAKER_01The other thing is partner uh partnership with Parkbus. Ah yes where uh yeah, they've we've done um I'm trying to think, two, yeah, at least two trips with Park bus park bus out to the Rouge. And Parkbus is an organization that's devoted to um allowing easy access to nature, basically, out of urban areas to local protected areas and providing either a school bus or a coach. And some of the trips are free or some of them are low cost. So people without a car or people that don't want to drive their car or uh for whatever reason, they can get on the bus and and travel out of the city into a protected area. So we've done a a number of of trips with Parks Bus, two of which have been to Rouge um Rouge Park, and uh they're they're hugely successful. And and uh the second time we went, I I acted as both uh the first time I was just kind of the bus warden and gave a little talk about Rouge and and the importance of urban protection of nature and urban connectivity. But the second time I actually got to lead a hike, and that was so much fun. Um and we were dropped off, it was a one-way hike, but the the bus dropped us off at one place, and then we walked down and they picked us up at another. Um they they dropped us off in um Glasgow.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And we walked in Yeah, yeah. It was called Glasgow. And then and then uh we uh a settlement called Mongolia, where they picked us up. The ball uh the blah it's the black walnut they use area in in Rouge uh National River Park. And we had a wonderful walk through uh uh natural areas and bordering fields and saw evidence of deer and coyotes and um and uh wonderful um flowing streams and lots of bird life, and it was just a it was a fantastic trip. And again, a lot of new Canadians um who were interested in learning more about uh the country that they've uh landed in, um, and just a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about learning the names of birds and and trees and plants and and things. So it was um it it it brought back some of my old uh naturalist days and uh really a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And if you want to book a uh hike, you can go to the Rouge National Urban Park site and you can um uh find out when they're doing. They have a lot of volunteers who are very, very knowledgeable. Many of them have naturalist backgrounds, et cetera. And the they you can join for one of those hikes. Some of those can be very easy. You can get more complex ones. Um, we did one recently with um Parks Canada in the Rouge. And um, I brought home a couple of friends, which were a couple of ticks, but uh they washed right off with a bit of hot water and uh and uh uh shower head spray. So um, yeah, don't be nervous. Um you can go into the Rouge and you can see amazing things. And then when we expand it with the pickering lands, that'll be even better because wildlife will just uh continue to flourish.
SPEAKER_01Like eight million people. We don't live that far from the rouge.
SPEAKER_03What's the figure? What's the figure on that again, Dave? What's the eight million?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think eight eight million people live within a hundred kilometers or an hour's drive of the Rouge, uh depending on traffic. But uh yeah. And that that figure is growing, and that's why we need to expand protection and um leave leave more space for nature. Um and yeah, both for nature's sake and for our own sake.
Why Expansion Helps Everyone
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um well as you mentioned, Defens Uh Creek, if you are your homeowner or you've got a building or a business, keeping that watershed uh protected is going to be a big deal for you because it's going to help in terms of flood and heat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So many benefits to uh to uh protection and particularly uh urban protection.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So thanks, Dave. This has been a great conversation. Uh I always learn a little bit more every time I I talk to you about uh about nature. So thanks very much.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Jan. All right, appreciate it. We'll see you see you next time.
SPEAKER_03All right, take care.
