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Ron Thiessen has been the Executive Director of CPAWS Manitoba for the past 15 years. He has been instrumental in establishing 23 parks and protected areas in Manitoba, consisting of nearly three million hectares of healthy lands and waters conserved for future generations. In addition, he has built relationships with governments, Indigenous nations, industry representatives and environmental groups that he consults with to find collaborative solutions to protect species at risk and their habitat.The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) was founded in 1963. It is Canada’s only nationwide charity devoted to protect public land and water and ensure that these areas are managed to protect their natural attributes. The size of the area that CPAWS had a lead role in protecting is over half a million square kilometres. Their vision is to protect at least half of Canada's public land area to benefit both wildlife and humans. Manitoba has a lot of peat-lands, which are known to hold more carbon per acre than any other soil on the planet - hence the desire to protect those areas. The Manitoba branch of CPAWS was formed in 1991 and has been involved in establishing 22 parks and protected areas. Manitoba has 92 provincial parks and has protected 71,376 sq. km. – which makes up 11% of the province. Canada is committed to conserve 25% of its lands and waters by 2025 and 30% by 2030. CPAWS is working to achieve those targets.A protected area is an area that has been legally set aside to be managed for long-term conservation of nature. Types of protected areas include ecological reserves (usually quite small), traditional use planning areas, national parks, provincial parks, wildlife management areas, provincial forests, conservation agency-owned lands and Indigenous protected and conserved areas. Since 2005, CPAWS has been partnering with Fisher River Cree Nation (FRCN) on a Conservation Areas initiative to protect the health of an area so that it can continue to provide sustainable economic opportunities while supporting Indigenous lifestyles and cultures. The initiative has the support of Peguis First Nation and the province of Manitoba. The area is in the Central Interlake region a couple of hours drive north of Winnipeg. It is a boreal region with forests, wetlands, sandy shore lines and islands that has a huge variety of plants, animals, birds and fish (including 53 species at risk). The idea is to have a network of conserved areas for the following benefits – provide opportunities for tourism and a healthy fishing industry, help restore the health of Lake Winnipeg, allow continuation of traditional Indigenous activities, help prevent floods, provide habitat for all the wildlife, serve as a massive carbon sink (to help mitigate climate change) and to protect the trees (which clean the air). David Crate, who has been Chief of the Fisher River Cree Nation since at least 2005 and has recently been awarded an Order of Canada, hopes that conservation of this area will ensure that his grandchildren’s grandchildren will be able to hunt, fish and hike in the region. The Fisher River Cree Nation has their own solar farm and half the homes on the reserve use geothermal heat. A challenge to forming the conservation area include a fairly populated area with many interests that need to be balanced (like conservation and sustainable economic activities). Benefits of the conservation include protection of the land and waters with resulting community-driven sustainable businesses and opportunities for employment as Indigenous Guardians, a federal program, assisting provincial Natural Resource officers. The process to developing Conservation Areas includes getting input from all concerned Manitobans (which includes the Indigenous community) as to which areas should be conserved. That done, a draft Conservation proposal would be prepared and presented to be reviewed by the same Manitobans. The proposal would then be refined based on those responses to produce a final proposal which would be presented to the “political powers that be” to try to implement the conservation plan to the best of their ability.Ron invited members who are interested in the work of CPAWS to volunteer with the organization, join their action alert list (i.e. email list), check out social media (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) and the CPAWS web site to learn more and/or make a donation (www.cpawsmb.org). Due to COVID, CPAWS is offering a number of online webinars, speaker series and various learning programs (CPAWS Stay at Home). Once conditions allow, outdoor group activities such as guided hikes, guided bird-watching walks, photography walks, group paddling canoe nights and skate nights in the winter. In response to questions we learned that CPAWS does not approach conservation with a definite proposal, but with a “clean slate”, hearing from all sides of an idea about a particular conservation area. Once the final proposal is presented, objections presented by people opposing the idea will be addressed and, ideally, mitigated.Lisa Naylor (MLA for the Wolseley area where Manitoba Hydro cut down 200 trees in Omand Park) is reaching out to see if the province can work with Hydro to replenish that landscape or restore it in some way. All governments are invested in addressing invasive species, as is CPAWS. An example in Winnipeg is purple loosestrife (a wetland plant native to Europe and Asia that was brought to North America in the early 19th century). Another example is the Canada Thistle that is starting to return after having been removed in an effort about 8 years ago in the Assiniboine Forest (which Ron enjoys visiting and appreciates our club’s stewardship). Ron is convinced that it is too late to do anything about the Zebra Mussels in Lake Winnipeg – the best one can do is reduce their spread to other lakes.The Federal government is coming out with new standards (e.g. airplanes being quieter) which would allow housing developments currently not allowed nearby airplane flight routes. Ron felt that the discussion about whether a hydro line should be built on the east side or the west side of Lake Winnipeg several years ago never addressed the fundamental question as to whether or not another hydro line was actually needed in the first place. Alan thanked Ron for his presentation and for the efforts that CPAWS has made in developing programs in the Assiniboine Forest with schools in Charleswood. He had not been aware of the total scope of CPAWS interests and capabilities. As a side-note, Alan mentioned noticing the planting of caraganas, an invasive species native to Asia and eastern Europe, around Manitoba Parks offices! |
