In an effort to save the world's largest old-growth red pine forest, 17 conservation organizations and businesses have joined forces to form the Wolf Lake Coalition.

The Wolf Lake Old Growth Forest is an “exceptional place” located within Sudbury city limits, and it is in peril more than 13 years after the province promised to protect the 300 year-old pines, the coalition stated in a press release.

The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is proposing to reduce protection in the heart of the Wolf Lake Old Growth Forest Reserve to encourage mineral exploration. The Wolf Lake Coalition is calling on the government of Ontario to honour its promise to fully protect Wolf Lake as part of the Chiniguchi Waterway Provincial Park.

The new Wolf Lake Coalition has an online home at SaveWolfLake.org.

“The Wolf Lake pine stand is a cultural jewel that connects today’s generation to the very resources that created Sudbury in the past,” Franco Mariotti, of the City of Greater Sudbury’s Green Space Advisory Panel, said, in the release. “To not protect the Wolf Lake old growth site is to deny future generations of this truly unique natural asset. It would be a denial of our historic past and a short -sighted vision of our future.”

The Green Space Advisory Panel, which is appointed by Sudbury city council to provide advice on their Green Space Strategy, last week urged the city to afford Wolf Lake permanent protection as the city’s newest Ecological Reserve.

Red pine is one of Ontario’s most iconic tree species; a signature of the cherished northern landscape, the coalition wrote. Red pine forests once covered much of eastern North America, including what is now downtown Sudbury. These ancient forests remain on only 1.2 per cent of their original extent, making them a critically endangered ecosystem.

The Wolf Lake stand is the largest remaining example of this ecosystem — more than triple the size of the next largest remnant.

“We know of nothing like it that exists anywhere else,” Bob Olajos, of the Friends of Temagami, said. “If we don’t act now to fully protect Wolf Lake, then we lose the opportunity to enjoy the economic and ecological benefits of this unique forest. What we have at Wolf Lake cannot be replicated elsewhere.”

Coalition members include: Ancient Forest Exploration and Research, Association of Youth Camps on Temagami Lakes, BAM North Productions, Camp Keewaydin, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society – Ottawa Valley, Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury, The Council of Canadians, Earthroots, Friends of Temagami, Friends of the LaVase Portages, Lake Temagami Group, Nipissing Environmental Watch, Ontario Rivers Alliance, Paddle Canada, Rob Nelson Photography, Temagami Lakes Association, Wild Women Expeditions.

Posted by Arron Pickard