Over the past three years, CPAWS Wildlands League has taken an in-depth look at forestry practices and plans in the one-million-hectare Whiskey Jack forest unit in northwestern Ontario. 

Through a careful examinationof the details and assumptions in the five-year 2004 Forest Management Plan for the Whiskey Jack Forest, we assessed the sustainability of planned logging activities.

What we found in our assessment were overly optimistic assumptions about the forest’s ability to sustain high levels of logging, poor implementation of MNR guidelines for the protection of caribou and marten habitat and inadequate accounting for the past impacts of logging on wildlife and habitat. In fact, our assessment shows that rather than focusing on much needed ecological restoration for the Whiskey Jack Forest, the current plan is focused on maintaining cutting rates based on overly optimistic wood-supply calculations. Combined with serious gaps in basic ecological information about the forest, this is preventing the development of a much-needed new approach to management (and restoration) of this forest.  Read our press release.

Summary

Full Report 

Maps

Read some of the media resulting from the release of the report.