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 The
Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust
Urban Sprawl or Wild Land for the Future?
http://www.oakridgesmoraine.org/
Home and Native Land
The use of land at the edges of growing cities is often the subject
of differences of opinion and debate. People who are new arrivals
need homes. Developers wish to build houses. Municipalities need
to provide roads to provide access to their city as it grows. Small
Ontario farms wish to remain in business, but competition from
large and often foreign food-growing businesses is difficult
to compete with. Farmers are often tempted to sell their land to
developers as the suburbs sprawl closer, and land values rise.
And property owners and environmentalists raise concerns over the
health of green spaces and habitat: wetlands, forested lots, grasslands,
and rivers' edges.
Preserving healthy wild land, and preserving healthy ecosystems
for the future in and around rapidly-developing cities, is a challenge.
An effective and familiar way to protect green spaces is for cities
and towns to set aside land as public parks or conservation areas.
Another less-visible method is for private land to be purchased
or legally bound by owners' agreements to preserve it in its natural
state. Organizations that buy or arrange for the future legal protection
of wild lands by owners have come to be called nature conservancies or land
trusts. The Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust is one such group.
It is an organization which works to preserve wild land on a unique
landform north of the city of Toronto, a glacial deposit called
a moraine.
A Unique Ontario Land Feature
 The
Oak Ridges Moraine is one of the most significant landforms in
southern Ontario. Located just north of Toronto, its rolling hills
and river valleys extend 160 kilometres west to east, from the
Niagara Escarpment to Rice Lake. This long ridge of sand and gravel
hills was deposited 12,000 years ago by retreating glaciers.
The moraine is important to both local water quality and local
species. It contains the headwaters of 65 river systems (35 in
the Greater Toronto Area alone) and has a wide diversity of natural
features such as streams, woodlands, wetlands, kettle lakes and
kettle bogs.
It is home to significant flora and fauna (plants and animals).
This strip of nature is one of the last remaining continuous green
corridors in southern Ontario: still 30 per cent forested, it is
one of the diminishing places of refuge for forest birds in southern
Ontario.
Homes or Habitat?
 Because
it is so close to Toronto, the Oak Ridges Moraine has become the
site of a debate between developers and preservationists as to
how much land should be built on, and how much should be kept green
and wild. Thousands of new homes have already been built there.
Now local citizens groups joined by a committee at the City of
Toronto, and attention from the Ontario Liberal provincial government
(2004) are trying hard to slow the rate of development.
The Design of Urban Sprawl
Urban sprawl does not simply happen in random fashion as people
build new houses. It is planned by large land developers companies
that buy land and subdivide it into residential subdivisions, malls
and industrial zones. Southern Ontario "conurbations" or
city-suburb combinations are spreading across the landscape. And
in 2004, housing developments surrounding cities continue to use
low-density patterns of land use as they did in the 1960s. New
isolated subdivisions, and the highways needed to reach them, replace
farmland and forests.
The suburban patterns of urban sprawl are a serious contributor
to climate change. But even as concerns about this global warming
continue to grow, so do new suburbs. Large, not particularly energy-efficient
homes, surrounded by rolling lawns cut with gas-powered mowers
are built in communities with no nearby services. Suburban development
separates homes from businesses, schools and shopping areas, requiring
the use of fossil-fuel burning cars for nearly every family need.
More and more people are also buying sports utility vehicles (SUVs)
to transport their families and goods, greatly increasing the consumption
of gas (fossil fuel) and carbon dioxide emissions. SUV are technically
trucks, and can weigh twice as much as a conventional car.
Building a Suburb
 Suburban
development begins by removing all trees and vegetation so they
will not be in the way of the builders, or limit the number or
the arrangement of houses to be built. Topsoil is frequently removed
to level the land. The loss of old trees removes shade as well
as their carbon-dioxide absorbing capacity. Unshaded neighbourhoods
need far more air-conditioning on hot summer days, requiring high
summer energy use. And the houses-only layouts of suburban design
build in a requirement for homeowners to use cars for nearly all
their errands. Car use for all transportation contributes to increased
greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
Sprawl, Energy Use and Climate Change
- About 70% of Canadian greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation
are from cars and trucks. Two-thirds of these emissions are produced
within urban areas.
- People in suburbs are less likely to walk, cycle and take public
transit to get around than are people in densely built-up city
centres. In addition, the wider the suburban areas spread, the
longer people's commuting distances become to get to city centres.
Increasing traffic - and eventually gridlock - on highways make
it difficult for Canada to meet its Kyoto pledge.
- The degree of reliance on cars created by suburban sprawl puts
a heavy burden on Canada's energy supply, and adds to pressures
to find new supplies. Tar sands oil extraction in Alberta produces
125 kg of GHG emissions for each barrel of oil produced.
- The loss of nearby farmland reduces the availability of local
fresh fruits and vegetables, and requires more transportation
of produce from farther away, increasing greenhouse gases production
in their shipping.
The New "Smart Growth"
Cities will not stop growing. But they can grow differently. Both
city officials and citizens are recognizing that a new balance
is needed between human needs and nature's needs.
The concept of "smart growth" has been developed for
towns and cities, to keep their countryside, natural areas and
farmlands protected. A growing number of non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) are calling upon governments to build protection for rural
and natural areas into planning policies.
One group, Ontario Nature (formerly the Federation of Ontario
Naturalists) has described "smart communities" as those
that "maintain existing urban boundaries and are compact,
pedestrian- and transit-friendly, attractive, livable places that
put nature first. They protect woodlands, wetlands and wildlife
in both rural and urban areas." Their campaign to protect
urban, suburban and rural green spaces can be accessed at http://www.cnf.ca/naturecanada/spring04/terra.html.
Ontario Nature has also produced a book called A Smart Future
for Ontario which is accessible on their website at http://www.ontarionature.org/enviroandcons/issues/sprawl.html.
It outlines the problems with urban sprawl, how smart growth
can help cities take a different approach, a vision of an Ontario
that ranks protection of nature as a priority and ways to make
smart growth happen.
Informed Citizens Make Change Happen
 Ontario
Nature began their smart growth work when they became involved
in protecting the Oak Ridges Moraine. They knew that citizens and
non-governmental groups are THE most important voices in making
governments change the way they do things.
Informed citizens are also one of the most important ingredients
in working to address climate change. When knowledgeable, informed
people speak out together, they can create the future they want
for both themselves and the ecosystems that support human life.
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Anthropologist Margaret Mead's famous saying remains as
true as ever:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing
that ever has.
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Resources
The Federation of Ontario Naturalists: A Smart Future for
Ontario: How to Protect Nature and Curb Urban Sprawl in Your
Community, November, 2002
http://www.ontarionature.org/news/template.php3?n_code=122
David Suzuki Foundation: Driven to Action A Citizen's Toolkit Sprawl
Facts
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/Climate/Ontario/sprawlfacts.pdf
ACTIVITY 1
- Give minimum of 3 reasons that farmers sell their land to developers.
- Although people need homes to live in, what are the problems
of housing being built in the suburbs? Living in the suburbs?
- List the features of an ideal community that would provide
a healthy environment and have a minimum contribution to climate
change.
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