Approximately 3,000 hectares of land within Greater Sudbury has been added to the federal government’s database of protected areas under their 30x30 initiative.
The federal plan aims to conserve 30 per cent of Canada by 2030, and is part of a broader effort which 195 member countries signed onto in late 2022.
Greater Sudbury city council signed onto the global effort last year, when members unanimously pledged to add approximately 109,000 hectares of land and water to the national database by 2030.
On Thursday morning, local delegates gathered at the BioSki Cross-Country Ski and Snowshoe Club building at 2420 South Bay Road to celebrate the addition of 3,000 hectares.
Of these hectares, approximately 900 are within Conservation Sudbury’s Lake Laurentian Conservation Area, which the club building is situated within.
These lands, at the south end of Ramsey Lake and around Lake Laurentian and Perch Lake, are largely undisturbed.
The balance of the 3,000 hectares are municipal lands throughout Greater Sudbury, including such places as A.Y. Jackson Lookout and Onaping's High Falls, Fielding Memorial Park, Moonlight Beach, Centennial Park, Terry Fox Sports Complex and Lily Creek.
“This designation does not affect public access,” Mayor Paul Lefebvre told the crowd of supporters who gathered. “Protecting biodiversity doesn’t mean we’ll fence off these areas and limit access. Residents and visitors will continue to enjoy these spaces for recreational purposes, just as they always have.”
Conservation Sudbury general manager Carl Jorgensen reiterated this point in conversation with Sudbury.com following Thursday’s event, noting that the Lake Laurentian Conservation Area remains open to the public to cycle, walk, birdwatch and canoe.
“The addition of all of these properties to the national database does not add any protection to them, all it does is add them to the database,” he said, noting that in order to qualify for the database the affected lands already have “robust protections” in place.
The database, he said, is “an acknowledgement that local levels of government can contribute to a national target, and the national target is part of an international target, so it’s really the global effort at a local level.”
Qualifying lands carry a less-than 25-per-cent human footprint, which he said the 900-hectare contribution within the Lake Laurentian Conservation Area are much less human-affected than that.
“We only occupy what we absolutely have to,” Jorgensen said.
Thursday’s media event also included remarks by Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh, who represents the area on city council, and Sudbury Liberal MP Viviane Lapointe.
Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory elder Jim Eshkawkogan opened the event with a brief smudge and lesson regarding Indigenous teachings, Sudbury’s original name, N'Swakamok, meaning “where three roads meet,” and to bring home a message that “all of creation is sacred.”
Last year, Mayor’s Task Force on 30x30 working group chair Franco Mariotti told city council that conserving 30 per cent of Greater Sudbury’s 3,627-square-kilometre land base shouldn’t be too difficult.
Approximately 40,000 hectares of land (36.7 per cent of their goal) is already protected within such things as provincial parks, Laurentian University greenspace and Conservation Sudbury property, he said, with the 69,000-hectare balance likely attained by incorporating existing Crown, municipal and institutional lands.
Sudbury.com reached out to city communications staff to inquire as to what the city’s total contribution to the federal 30x30 database has been thus far, including the 3,000 hectares announced on Thursday, but have not yet received a response. This story will be updated in the event a response is received.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.