Carolinian Canada Recognizes An Important Essex Site

May 15, 2003

Pelee Island... One of Canada's most active environmental and conservation coalitions has recognized The Stone Road Alvar on Pelee Island as a key Carolinian site, citing its importance to the natural heritage of Ontario.

Ric Wellwood, Program Coordinator for Carolinian Canada was joined by the Director of the Nature Conservancy of Canada to help the Mayor of Pelee Island Township to unveil a large bronze plaque that reads as follows:

"Pelee Island is the largest island in the Western Lake Erie Archipelago, which extends from Ontario to Ohio and it supports some of the most ecologically significant areas in Canada. Stone Road Alvar is one of Pelee Island''s most important natural areas, and has been designate3d as a provincial area of Natural and Scientific Interest.

Alvars are unique ecosystems that occur on flat limestone bedrock where soils are thin or absent and distinct associations of plants have adapted to seasonal drought and flooding. Most of North America''s alvars occur in the Great Lakes basin. A significant portion of original alvar habitat has been lost since European settlement. Alvar communities are globally imperilled and support s4veral globally rare species.

Stone Road Alvar has the most extensive, most diverse and best quality alvar habitat in southwestern Ontario. The International Alvar Conservation Initiative has identified this site as a unique Chinquapin Oak/Noddingt Onion Alvar Savanna. Due to its location in Canada''s far south, Stone Road Alvar has many Carolinian elements, yet it also shares many species with alvars of the Canadian Shield. The site supports a large number of imperilled native species, including several that are endangered, threatened or of special concern. Examples include reptiles such as the Blue Racer, the Lake Erie Water Snake, plants like the Wild Hyacinth, Red Mulberry, Hop Tree and Prairie Rose, and birds such as the Yellow-Breasted Chat.

Stone Road Alvar is approximately 220 hectares (540 acres) in size. A significant portion of the alvar has been purchased for conservation by the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Essex Region Conservation Authority, Nature Conservancy of Canada and Wilds of Pelee Island. Parts of the Alvar are also owned by a number of private landowners, whose land stewardship commitments contribute to the success of the site. The Pelee Island Heritage Centre and the Essex County Field Naturalists'' Club provide critical assistance in managing this site. The community of Pelee Island has stewarded the alvar through many generations. Please enjoy and respect this important piece of Canada''s Carolinian heritage."

About Carolinian Canada

The Carolinian Life Zone stretches across southwestern Ontario from Grand Bend on Lake Huron, to the Rouge River at Lake Ontario, east of Toronto, and includes all land and watercourses to the south of this line. Because of its long summers and comparatively mild winters, the Zone is home to Canada''s greatest variety of wildlife, both flora and fauna. It is also home to the most industrial and development activity in the nation and one-quarter of the population, even though it comprises one-quarter of one per cent of the Canadian land mass.

Understandably, this kind of pressure has been hard on the ecosystems and species of the Carolinian Life Zone, a fact recognized almost twenty years ago when a host of interested organizations and stakeholders agreed that the Life Zone needed careful and militant stewardship, conducted with intelligent management plans on a number of different levels in simultaneous operation.

In 1984, with funding from concerned charitable foundations and government agencies, Carolinian Canada Coalition was formed to tackle the environmental and conservation concerns of the region, drawing membership from more than 40 government and non-government organizations. It''s current Management Committee contains representatives of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, the Ontario Ministries of Natural Resources, Environment and Agriculture, Conservation Ontario, Parks Canada, the Ontario Heritage Foundation, the Canadian Botanical Association, the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, Parks Canada, the Six Nations Confederacy of the Grand River Territory, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Service, Ontario Stewardship and the Ontario Forestry Association. In addition, there are members from local field naturalist organizations and Conservation Authorities.

The natural heritage of Carolinian Canada contains 2,200 species of herbaceous plants, and its seventy species of trees are twice that found north of the Great Lakes. Its 400 bird species are more than twice that found in the rest of the nation. In addition, there are 20 species of amphibians, 27 species of reptiles. Carolinian Canada is home to 50 species of insects and spiders that can be found nowhere else in Canada. In terms of Species at Risk (SAR), Carolinian Canada contains one-third of the nation's rare and endangered species and 40% of Ontario's rare plants. In all, 124 Carolinian Species are officially listed as at risk, and 43 are on the Endangered List. All of this flora and fauna exists where it can, despite intensive agriculture and sprawling development that puts pressure on the remaining habitat.

Carolinian Canada decided from the onset that the best way to preserve, restore and enhance habitat in the Zone was through intensive efforts to communicate its unique circumstances and needs to stakeholders, and the public at large. In order to effect early efforts to enhance public awareness, it launched "The Big Picture" Project with assistance from the George C. Metcalf Charitable Foundation. The Big Picture embraced the Carolinian Life Zone on numerous levels as befitted the broad membership of the Coalition. Five thousand colour posters were printed for distribution to schools, libraries and centres of conservation.

Additional information was amassed and printed in special documents, the latest of which offered solutions for many threats to the natural heritage of the region. "Practical Options for the Greening of Carolinian Canada" was released on Carolinian Canada Day at the annual conference of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists on May 31^st, 2002. It has since been made available to all who request it by mail or telephone and is also available in short and long forms for download from the Carolinian Canada website at www.carolinian.org

The Big Picture Project continues with an aspect we call The Road Show, in efforts to go into every community with presentations outlining our concerns and priorities. It was recently presented at the Grassroots for Grasslands Conference at the Bird Studies Canada Centre in Port Rowan, Ontario. The Road Show will continue for several years with presentations at the local level, thanks to basic funding from the George C. Metcalf Foundation. Carolinian Canada is currently seeking to augment this commitment with matching funds from some of Canada's most important environmental funders. It is our way to enlarging and extending the Big Picture into the 21^st Century.

Part of the consciousness-raising efforts of Carolinian Canada centres on 38 separate sites that have been identified as key sites of importance to the Carolinian Life Zone. Through the generous sponsorship of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we have initiated a 3-year project to identify these sites and outline their importance on bronze plaques through the Community Marking Project. More than half-a-dozen of these 40""X30"" plaques have already been dedicated with attendance by local dignitaries, political officials, media, school children and the public. Our latest plaque dedicates the ecological importance of the Stone Road Alvar on Pelee Island.

In its communication efforts, Carolinian Canada works with all types of environmental organizations and has a presence in Land Trust organizations, conservation and environmental workshops and conferences, educational efforts, agricultural planning, species at risk concerns, and planning conferences. Any activity that impacts on the Carolinian Life Zone draws the attention and participation of the Coalition.