Land Acquisition Program Update
Over the past decade, the ECO has been monitoring the province’s conservation land acquisition activities. Acquiring conservation lands, particularly in southern Ontario, is important for safeguarding biodiversity – by preserving habitat, connecting and restoring fragmented ecosystems and other environmental mechanisms.
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Ongoing Management Issues
From our monitoring, we have documented four ongoing management issues:
- Lack of administrative consistency: Conservation land acquisition has been administered through various programs and initiatives under different names and using different criteria, by at least two different ministries or agencies of the provincial government: the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and the Ontario Heritage Trust (OHT) [The current program (since 2006) is known as MNR’s Land securement program (MLSP).] The last such program that MNR operated was called the Ecological Land Acquisition Program (ELAP). The activities have almost always been carried out in conjunction with a not-for-proft organization, like a land trust or a conservation authority. The province’s principal program in 2007/2008 was the Natural Spaces Land Acquisition and Stewardship Program (NSLASP), administered by the OHT.
- Lack of transparency: The track record of provincial ministries and agencies in posting information about land acquisition activities on the Registry has not been very good. For example, the NSLASP program was not posted on the Registry as a proposal to allow the public to comment on its criteria for land acquisition. Further, none of the individual property acquisitions has ever been posted to the Registry at the proposal stage.
- Lack of funding: Land acquisition programs have been chronically underfunded, given the large task at hand, primarily in southern Ontario.
- Lack of coordinated documentation: The total monetary value of land acquisition activities is difficult to track on a year-to-year basis for the entire province (or even southern Ontario alone), as some ministries have made donations of lands to conservation organizations outside of any formal land acquisition program. As well, MNR provides funding to conservation organizations through agreements that are separate from the MLSP program.
Funding levels
Despite the various and separate mechanisms by which the province supports the acquisition of ecologically significant lands in Ontario, the ECO remains concerned about the level of funding that the province dedicates each year to these activities. In the ECO’s 2005-2006 Annual Report, we noted that the province’s land acquisition budget had remained virtually frozen, at approximately $5-6 million annually, for the previous decade. Meanwhile, the price of farmland in southern Ontario – so often the object of conservation land acquisitions, since farm property often includes significant natural heritage features, such as wetlands or woodlots – has increased dramatically over the past decade.
The NSLASP program covers southern Ontario only (roughly the area south of the Precambrian Shield) and is available to conservation bodies, as defined in the Conservation Land Act, including the Crown, a conservation authority, the council of a municipality, an incorporated corporation that is a registered charity, or a trustee of a charitable foundation.
The last provincial contribution to the OHT for land acquisition purposes was $6 million in 2005/2006. This fund was nearly depleted by the end of 2007/2008, after two cycles of grant applications. In early of 2008, the ECO contacted staff at the OHT to fnd out if there had been any new funding developments. OHT staff reported that no new funding had been dedicated to the NSLASP program for the 2008/2009 fiscal year. However, before the close of the fiscal year 2007/2008, MNR announced that it had provided funding of $5.47 million to various land acquisition agencies. Most of this funding was allocated to three conservation organizations (i.e., the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Ontario Land Trust Alliance), based on five-year standing agreements with MNR (see Table 1).
Table 1: Principal Land Acquisition Programs and Budgets
| Fiscal Year | Program | Average Annual Budget |
|---|---|---|
| 1989/99 | NAPP [1] | $5 M |
| 1999/00 | NAPP | $5 M |
| 2000/01 | NAPP | $5 M |
| 2001/02 | NAPP | $5 M |
| 2002/03 | ELAP [2] | $5 M |
| 2003/04 | ELAP | $5 M |
| 2004/05 | ELAP (extended) | $2.5 M |
| 2005/06 | NSLASP[3] (OHT) | $5.7 M [4] |
| 2006/07 | MLSP (OHT) | No new funds [5] |
| 2007/08 | MLSP | $5.47 M |
| 2008/09 | MLSP (OHT?) | $27 M over four years |
Notes
- ↑ Natural Area Protection Program
- ↑ Ecological Land Acquisition Program
- ↑ Natural Spaces Land Acquisition and Stewardship Program
- ↑ ($4.5 M is available for acquisition, the other $1.2 M is for stewardship activities on newly acquired lands)
- ↑ (carry-over of the $5.7 M)
More stable funding is needed
A more stable and greater level of funding for land acquisition is critical because the target area of NSLASP is southern Ontario, an area of roughly 200,000 square kilometres, most of which is privately owned. The land in this part of the province is costly in real estate terms. Compare this with central and northern Ontario, where most land is under Crown control, which means the province could potentially protect lands, forests and important ecosystems without the need to make direct purchases. In contrast, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority estimates that funding of $20 million per year over two decades is required in their watersheds alone for the acquisition of the necessary parcels of land to create continuous wildlife corridors and habitat, and to protect vulnerable waterways and river basin lands.
In the Ontario government budget, released in late March of 2008, MNR was provided with funding totalling $27 million over four years to acquire ecologically sensitive lands for conservation purposes. No other details were available as of August 2008.
ECO Comment
The ECO welcomes the announcement of a longer-term funding approach, but it remains to be seen whether all the allocated budgeted funds will be spent on land acquisition. While programs like ELAP had been allocated similar budgets in the past, the full amount was seldom spent on land acquisitions; this can happen if acquisitions cannot be completed before fiscal year-end, and the unallocated funds are returned to the Ontario treasury. This suggests that there is a need to expedite land acquisitions.
To expedite the process of land acquisition, MNR and OHT could modify their current funding formula. Conservation organizations must devote considerable resources to land acquisitions through a 50/50 matching funds arrangement; by reducing their contributions to 40 per cent or some other less onerous ratio the province would reduce the financial burden on their land acquisition partners. Most of these organizations are classified as charities by the Canada Revenue Agency and may experience difficulty in raising sufficient funds to meet the matching funds criterion and acquire property. In addition, MNR and OHT could also explore the possibility of guaranteeing mortgages or providing bridge financing for projects undertaken by a conservation organization in order to enable land acquisitions in a timelier manner.
The provincial government is a large landowner and some of these lands happen to have important natural heritage features. These lands are managed by the Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC), an agency that (since 2004) reports to the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal. When ORC is going through the disposition (preparation to sell) process, an opportunity is given to other ministries/agencies and municipalities to express an interest. This opportunity to express an interest only lasts for 15 working days. The ECO feels that MNR should work with ORC to determine which provincially owned lands contain natural heritage features prior to disposition in order to identify priority properties for acquisition. This could apply to ORC lands that are adjacent to areas that have already been identified as a park or to lands within the Greenbelt, Oak Ridges Moraine or Niagara Escarpment.
This would lead to more ‘good news’ stories like the province’s announcement in February 2007 of the addition of 1,500 acres of ORC lands to the Rouge Park (part of the Greenbelt) in the Greater Toronto Area.
| Recommendation 7:
The ECO recommends that MNR and MCL modify the current funding formula for land acquisition programs to reduce the financial burden on conservation organizations. |
| This is an article from the 2007/08 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2008. "Land Acquisition Program Update." Getting to K(No)w, ECO Annual Report, 2007-08. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 82-85.
