Planning for Long, Wide Conservation Corridors on Private Lands in the Oak Ridges Moraine, Ontario, Canada

Abstract:  We explored the role of conservation biology in the planning of a natural-heritage system that includes long, wide conservation corridors situated primarily on private lands, and established to connect natural core areas in the Oak Ridges Moraine of Ontario, Canada. We based our review on government documents, semi-structured interviews with participants involved in this land-use planning process, and our involvement with the issue from 1990 through 2002. Conservation biology had a major influence on the outcome of the land-use planning process for this moraine. The landform was identified as an area of value by the environmental movement within the context of a number of ongoing government studies that began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Conservation biologists and planners in government, the environmental movement, and the private sector carried out work related to conservation biology, including inventories and the development and application of criteria for the delineation of core areas and conservation corridors. Once the political timing was favorable (2001–2002), decision makers linked the science of conservation biology to planning policies and law in Ontario. The Oak Ridges Moraine land-use planning process was precedent setting in Canada, and possibly internationally. To our knowledge this is the first time long, wide conservation corridors on private lands were regulated through land-use-planning legislation and led to restrictions on urban development and aggregate resource extraction.