Ontario Land Use
B265406
Overview of Ontario and It’s Land Use
Ontario is Canada’s most populous province, boasting a population of 16 million. The vast majority live within 100 miles of the US border, leaving most of northern Ontario unpopulated. The province is split between its densely populated southern region and the sparsely populated middle and northern regions1.
There is a similar trend in its land use; 87% of Ontario is considered Crown Land, meaning it is owned and operated by the government. This 87% is broken up into 10% for provincial parks and conservation reserves and 77% as wilderness2. The wilderness area is free to use for all sorts of recreational activities, such as camping, hiking, fishing, and canoeing3. Industry can apply to rent sections of this land for economic purposes but need government approval before developing the land4.
Ontario is divided into three ecozones, demarcated by the bold red lines in Figure 1 below. These ecozones are separated from each other based on their bedrock origin and chemistry, providing a chemical and physical foundation for the ecosystem processes and biota situated there. These ecozones are then broken up into smaller areas ecoregions which are differentiated based on climactic changes such as temperature and humidity5.
The northernmost ecozone, the Hudson Bay Lowlands, consists of cold ecoregions. Bordering the Hudson Bay, this area has poor drainage full of peatland landscapes and open water wetlands. First Nations communities are the primary inhabitants, relying on hunting, fishing, and trapping, though mineral prospecters have come recently6.
Most of Ontario falls into the Ontario Shield ecosystem, dominated by the Precambrian bedrock that underscores it. A great deal of this area is exposed bedrock, which makes large-scale agriculture difficult for this area. The main land use of this area is forestry and mining, with some hunting and trapping as well7.
The smallest ecozone, the Mixedwood Plains, is the warmest area in all of Canada, with temperature ranges of -12C – 30C throughout the year. Most of the previously forested areas and wetlands have been converted into urban areas or agriculture, leaving only 10 - 15% of the remaining area as standing trees. 7% of the this southern ecoregion is developed land, and 70 - 75% of this area is used for agriculture8.
These ecozones provide an overview of the province’s land uses: agriculture and urban areas in the south, forestry and mining in the middle, and not much in the north, since the climate is very harsh, dissuading most potential inhabitants from moving there.
Figure 1: Ecosystems and Ecoregions of Ontario. Taken from Ontario.ca
Historical Changes in Land Use
An understanding of land use in Ontario must center Indigenous peoples and their relationships with Britain. They were the first to inhabit Ontario and have acted as its stewards for thousands of years. Their sovereignty over the land was recognized in the first legal treatises before Canada was even considered a country9. Since then, they have been forced off their land and into many unfair treaties, but they maintain their right to the land.
Most of the Indigenous peoples in Ontario were hunters and gatherers until 600 CE, when the Iroquois adopted agriculture. Not all Indigenous peoples settled down with farming, though; the Algonquians and Chippewas still relied on hunting and gathering as their primary food source10.
The European colonists arrived in the 1600s and cleared forests for agriculture11. They expanded westward into Indigenous land, finding themselves in conflict with the local First Nations. The British Government tried to limit westward expansion, issuing the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which was later ratified as the Treaty of Niagara, recognizing Indigenous and First Nation groups as sovereign entities12.
The British quickly disregarded this, expanding into the St. Lawrence Valley and clearing more forests for agriculture in the late 1700’s. When they saw that the cleared forests left poor soil after a few harvests, they expanded at an even faster rate13.
Ahead of the farmers were timber companies such as J. R. Booth who would clear cut forests of northern Ontario (pictured below)14. Colonists followed the companies, setting up towns and settlements on Indigenous land. With this came more intensive development, such as the Canadian Pacific Railway in 188215, fracturing the habitat for large game and bringing more colonists who overhunted the food source for the First Nations16.
This blatant disregard of the previous treaties led many Indigenous groups to sign Treaty 9, ceding two-thirds of Ontario for a meagre financial repayment in 1905. This gave the settlers unrestricted access to the rest of Ontario, where they continued to clear forests 17. Erosion became such an issue from the forestry that in the 1920’s Ontario began a reforesting program on sandy soils, to little effect18.
Since then, development continued at a steady pace: more forestry companies opened in northern Ontario, mining became larger after gold was discovered in Timmins, and mineral prospecting pushed north. Agriculture continued to be the main land use in southern Ontario, and the big cities their started to stretch into a suburban blob.19.
Socio-Economic Drivers of Land Use
Current Ontario land use is mediated by the competition of economic development and the forces of conservation and Indigenous reconciliation. In southern Ontario, the profit from urban expansion conflicts with wishes to maintain conservation.
A prime example of this is recent Greenbelt Controversy. As the suburban sprawl of the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area spread further each year, environmentalists, farmers, and residents became concerned about air and water pollution wetland drainage, and fracturing species habitat. The solution was the Greenbelt, a conservation area established in 2005 that spans over 2,000,000 acres, protecting farmland and environmentally sensitive areas from development20.
In 2022, however, current Premier Doug Ford (pictured right) shared his plans to begin building housing on the Greenbelt, a clear violation of the province’s promise21 22. Amid the backlash, documents came out showing his own economic ties to the developers, furthering discontent and adding claims of cronyism and corruption23. Although the next year he did withdraw this plan, he has since promised to build Highway 413 through the Greenbelt, putting more species at risk and further polluting the conserved area from car exhaust24.
If you are interested in learning more about Highway 413’s impact on the Greenbelt, this article explains it quite well.
Competing drivers for land use also plays out in northern Ontario, often between natural resource industries and First Nations communities. Mineral prospecting creeping north finds itself in conflict with the Indigenous reservations there25. Intensive industries such as mining or forestry pollute their surrounding areas, which tend to be Indigenous reservations. As seen the case of Grassy Narrows, where a paper pulp mill dumped ten thousand tons of mercury into a river leading to the Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation, Indigenous communities bear the brunt of natural industries degrade their environment without benefiting themselves26. When industries brazenly reject these concerns and go ahead with their resource extraction, Indigenous communities respond with protests and direct action against their machinery27. Some companies have instead tried to work with the Indigenous communities, bringing in employment and infrastructure in exchange for the natural resources. This has eased tensions but has not been tried enough times for success to be determined28.
Now that prospectors have discovered the “Ring of Fire,” a 5000 square kilometer area of mineral deposits on Indigenous land in the Hudson Bay Lowlands, the competing relationship between Indigenous rights and industrial profits will once again be tested29.
Agriculture and its Impacts
Ontario agriculture makes up one-fourth of Canada’s total farms, primarily producing soybeans, tobacco, and corn. Most of Ontario’s farms are small-scale; 60% make under $100,000 in revenue a year30. Almost all of them are in the province’s southernmost tip, as shown in Figure 2 below. Since much of southern Ontario used to be wetlands, it provides nutrient rich soil, providing ideal farming conditions.
Ontario farms are adopting more green farming methods yearly. Statistics Canada reports an increase in sustainable methods like winter cover cropping and rotational grazing31. Other environmental practices receive less pickup, however. Windbreaks, farm forests, and riparian buffers have seen little adoption despite farmer interests, who cite financial constraints and pressure from urban expansions as difficulties32.
Environmental issues associated with agriculture are worsening. The Ontario government has reported a decline in soil organic matter coming from worsening soil erosion due to increased tilling33. Fertilizer runoff has been increasing in the past thirty years, boosting the concentration of nitrate in tributaries to Lake Ontario. It has not yet at reached a human health risk, though scientists warn of worsening algal blooms and eutrophication in Lakes Erie and Ontario. This is being ascribed to the increase of fertilizer application to farms in Ontario as they shift away from livestock and into crops such as soybeans and corn34.
Climate change poses real risks for Ontario agriculture. Most of the soil in the rest of the province is unproductive due to its parent material of the Canadian Shield35. Farmers won’t be able to adapt by simply going further north once warmer temperatures creep up. These warmer temperatures will lead to a decline in productivity, failures in crop harvests, and even deaths in livestock. Most affected are Ontario’s apple orchards and wine plantations, but also impacted are Ontario’s soybeans, its largest product36.
Ontario agriculture also needs to consider its labour, however. Almost a third of the labour force on farms in Ontario are temporary foreign workers, a program that brings in cheap migrant labour with little to no protection for them37. Working long hours often with dangerous chemicals with little legal rights, these workers are at the mercy of their employers. A survey from 2022 found that less than 95% of migrant workers had experienced financial abuse from their employer such as unpaid wages, forced overtime without compensation, or coercive recruitment fees38.
To read about an organization fighting for migrant workers’ rights, you can click this link.
Biodiversity and Conservation
Recent conservation rollbacks have left a lot of Ontarians worried about the biodiversity and conservation of the province39. Conservative Premier Doug Ford, responsible for the Greenbelt Controversy mentioned above, has worked hard to repeal and remove conservation legislation and regulations intended to lessen the impact the Ontario population has on the province. He has cut funding to fishery resource centers, the Ontario Biodiversity Council, and the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks. He has dismantled the Drive Clean program that sought to regulate excessively polluting vehicles. He did away with the cap-and-trade program previously in place to limit pollution40. Most of this was done in favour of profits for large, polluting industries, the largest backers of the Conservative Party.
The federal government has taken action for biodiversity in the province, however. A new program has been introduced responding to calls for both conservation and Indigenous rights. Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) have been set up to give Indigenous people authority over their own land while also conserving areas from pollution and land use change41.
Canada has a long history of forcing First Nations peoples off their lands in the name of conservation. Algonquin Park, the province’s extensive protected area, was only created after the expulsion of the Algonquins from their rightful land. Although there have been meager efforts to rectify this history, offering seats on advisory boards to Indigenous members, many critics agree that this has not been enough42.
Now, as Canada lays out its plan to conserve 30% of its lands and 30% of its water by 2030, it has decided to part with its historical practice of coerced removal and instead partner with Indigenous nations through these conservation areas43. These areas are Indigenous lead, have a long-term commitment to conservation, strengthen Indigenous Rights to their lands and must consult with their local communities 44.
IPCAs differ from conventional conservation areas in that they accept that humans are a part of nature. They do not ban humans from living within them, but rather work with the people who do, using Indigenous knowledge and practices from pre-colonization to live with nature. Such practices include cultural burns and sustainable hunting 45.
You can read more about Indigenous-led conservation here.
Pollution and Impacts
In its most recent State of the Environment in Ontario, the Office of Auditor General of Ontario outlined the most pressing environmental issues as deforestation, wetland loss, water pollution, and air contamination. The report found that for every one hectare of area reforested, four more were lost to deforestation. Water pollution trends have also worsened as algal blooms and microplastic concentrations are increasing. Conversely, air pollution in Ontario is declining. The report found that particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide have decreased in the past 30 years due to coal plants phasing out and the better efficiency of combustion and contaminant controlling technology in car exhaust46.
Unfortunately, ozone pollution is a growing issue, with levels up 23% in the past 30 years. Figure 3 compares the number of air quality alerts per year for a few municipalities in the province. As shown, the worst air quality is found in urbanized and industrial areas such as Toronto and Sarnia47 48.
Figure 3: Yearly Air Quality Advisories from Algonquin, Sarnia, Timmins, and Toronto from 2015-2023. Data from The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.
The location of each municipality is shown in Figure 4 below:
Pollution impacts the most socially disadvantaged people the hardest in Ontario49. Often that is Indigenous communities50. The clearest example of this is Grassy Narrows. Briefly mentioned in a prior section, the Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation’s reservation there has been severely harmed by mercury pollution from industrial discharge. In the 1960’s, Dryden Chemicals Ltd. dumped the ten thousand tons of mercury wastewater into the English-Wabigoon river system, which flows into the reservation. As the community relied on fish as the main source of their income and diet, the resulting ban from the government when fish were found to contain 10-50 times the amount of mercury as fish elsewhere decimated the community51. Furthermore, the water from the river was unsafe to drink, leading to repeated water advisory warnings that continue into today52.
The mercury has remained in the area, with a 2016 report finding that 90% of residents of Grassy Narrows suffer from mercury pollution. Little has been done for them, despite numerous government promises to remediate the land and compensate the community53 54.
As protest, the Asubpeeshoseewagong band council has banned any forestry activities from taking place on their lands. They have been blocking logging trucks from entering the Whiskey Jack Forest that comprises their reservation and challenging the Ontario government in land claims court until they receive proper remediation55.
This article provides an in-depth summary of the pollution at Grassy Narrows with quotes from members of the community if you would like to read more.
Forestry
Ontario forestry is one of the provinces most lucrative industries, generating $22.8 billion in revenue and is one of the largest contributors to GDP amid agriculture and mining56. With 66% of the province forested, its expanse seems endless. Ontario’s forests are important for more than just profits. These 70.5 million hectares comprise 2% of the total forests in the world, making them essential for carbon sequestration in the fight against climate change57. Their management is a delicate balance between preserving their ecological function and responding the economic interests as well as listening to the communities that live among them.
40% of Ontario forests are managed by the Ministry of Natural Resources, which oversee the forest operations, work schedules, and herbicides used58. They issue forestry licenses to companies and groups, mandating a sustainable forestry plan for each59. They profess to consult with the First Nation and Métis communities, though the actual say that these Indigenous groups have is unclear60.
The relation between Indigenous communities and the forestry industry continues to be a strained one. As mentioned in the prior section, Indigenous communities may take direct action against logging companies if they face the adverse consequences of industry without benefit nor consultation61. They see it as the logging companies coming into their land to extract their resources which Ontario recognizes as belonging to them, while they get nothing62.
There have been partnerships between Indigenous populations and logging companies, seen recently in the collaboration of Wincrief, a forestry company partnering with the Wabaseemoong Indigenous Nation. The Wabaseemoong nation suffered from disproportionate rates of unemployment in Kenora, but with Wincrief’s partnership, they were able to find work. Furthermore, Wincrief had to invest in infrastructure such as local roads and bridges to reach the timber, which benefited the local nation. In return, Wincrief was able to harvest timber in that area without worry of disruption and protest63.
Although cultural differences and economic pressures strained the relationship, ending the partnership, Wincrief is an important example of mutually beneficial logging. By partnering with an Indigenous community in the area, Wincrief had to weigh its profits against its ecological impacts, since clear cutting the forest would hurt the Wabaseemoong community. This encouraged it to log more sustainably and returned authority to the group that the land originally belonged to64.
Ontario forestry operates as a major industry through balancing its profit, environmental impacts, and impacts on Indigenous communities.
References
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Zurba, M. Framing the governance lifecycle of First Nations – industry forestry collaboration in northwestern Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research (2019).↩︎