Partnership Profile
Provincial Partnership Protects
Rare Habitat on Stawberry Island:
Project Will Conserve Natural Features and Web of Life
By Canada-Ontario Agreement Project, Great Lakes Branch, Ministry of Natural Resources, Peterborough, Canada
The Ontario government is enriching Ontario’s natural
heritage by partnering to protect Strawberry Island’s rare
habitat, Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay announced
today. “Located in Lake Huron’s North Channel, Strawberry
Island is home to extremely rare natural habitats, as well as
vast expanses of unspoiled shoreline and coastal wetlands,”
said Minister Ramsay. “By working with the Nature
Conservancy of Canada to preserve this beautiful and
biologically rich natural area, we are safeguarding important
natural heritage features, including nesting areas for bald
eagles, habitat for at least six provincially rare plant species
and significant plant communities.”
This project is a partnership between the Nature Conservancy
of Canada and the Ontario government. The conservancy
acquired 912 hectares of the 1,040-hectare island for
$1.6 million. The province contributed $250,000 towards the
purchase price. Future plans include establishing the island,
which is located off Manitoulin Island, as a nature reserve
class provincial park. Purchase of the island also supports
Canada/U.S. efforts to conserve biologically diverse islands
throughout the Great Lakes basin.
The island is home to a unique natural habitat, called an alvar.
Alvars are sparsely vegetated rock barrens that develop on flat
limestone bedrock with shallow soils. Globally rare, alvars are
found only around the Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea, and
support an extraordinary diversity of hardy but rare plants,
animals and invertebrates. “Protecting Strawberry Island is
part of our continuing effort to conserve some of the most
pristine alvar and coastal wetland communities in the Great
Lakes,” said John Grant, Midwestern Ontario Program
Manager for the Nature Conservancy of Canada. “NCC and
partners have acquired 9,500 hectares of land throughout the
basin to protect alvar habitat in places such as Manitoulin
Island, the Carden Alvar northeast of Lake Simcoe and the
Stone Road Alvar on Pelee Island.”
Since 1996, more than 16,000 hectares of land valued at
over $20 million have been protected to secure provincially
significant lands that will be managed as part of Ontario’s
parks and protected areas system. The purchase of Strawberry
Island is also one of more than 160 projects that the Ministry
of Natural Resources is undertaking this year to restore,
protect and better understand the environment of the Great
Lakes basin through the Canada-Ontario Agreement
Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem (COA).
For more information please contact: Steve Payne, Ministry of
Natural Resources, at 416-314-2103. Or visit Ontario's Ministry
of Natural Resources website: http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/.
Disclaimer:
The interpretations and conclusions presented in this newsletter represent the opinions of the individual authors. They in no way represent the views of the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, the C.S. Mott Foundation, subscribers, donors, or any organization mentioned in this publication.
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