The Boreal Forest

NDP delegates have voted overwhelmingly to reaffirm the party's commitment to protect the pristine boreal forest on the East Side of Lake Winnipeg and to continue to work with First Nations toward designating the East Side a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Delegates at the party's weekend convention voted to support development of a cultural and eco-tourism industry. It would generate new jobs and deliver direct economic benefits to local residents.

One of the first orders of business for delegates to the provincial NDP convention this week was reaffirming the party's stand on protecting Manitoba's wilderness.

It's too bad that communities like Berens River, Bloodvein and Little Grand Rapids are where they are.

If no one lived in the boreal forest on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, we might be in a better position to protect it from development.

Boreal forest researchers refer to both roads and hydro transmission lines as "linear features" but to some forest-dwellers they might simply be called bad news.

Conservation Minister Stan Struthers congratulated the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Tembec forestry corporation for negotiating a 50-year halt to logging in woodland caribou habitats on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.

"This government wholeheartedly supports this move to protect the important caribou habitat which is critical to maintaining populations of this threatened species," said Struthers. "Protecting our province's boreal forests is the key to caribou survival and to ensuring we keep Manitoba pristine for future generations."

SOME habitat used by a herd of woodland caribou has been protected from logging for at least 50 years thanks to a recent agreement between an environmental group and logging giant Tembec.

Conservation Minister Stan Struthers today congratulated the Canadian Parks
and Wilderness Society and Tembec forestry corporation for negotiating a
50-year halt to logging in woodland caribou habitats on the east side of
Lake Winnipeg.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and forestry corporation Tembec have negotiated a minimum 50-year halt on logging in an area used extensively by woodland caribou on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.

IT has been described as the northern lungs of our planet. It is the largest source of fresh water in the world. One of the biggest, untouched swaths of it sits right in our own backyard.

The Fisher River Cree Nation has put in a request to the provincial government to expand the current Fisher Bay Park Reserve to include the area east of the Jackhead Road and the area currently known as the Moose Creek Provincial Forest.