A Citizens' Toolkit for Nature Conservation

Resources and Education

About municipal government in Ontario

Chapter 3 of the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition publication Communities and Local Government: Working Together: A Resource Manual of Strategies provides an excellent overview of the structure and roles of municipal government in Ontario. Find out how decisions are made in your municipality, and what each department’s responsibilities are.

www.healthycommunities.on.ca/publications/local_gov/clgwt.pdf

Ontario Nature’s woodlands fact sheet series

If you want to learn more about Southern Ontario’s woodlands and why conserving and restoring them are so important, please read Ontario Nature’s new woodlands fact sheets. Topics include: greenways system of cores and corridors, forest fragmentation, old growth forests, woodlands and water, urban forests, and 10 ways to save your local woods.

www.ontarionature.org/resources/conservation_factsheets.html

Glossary of environmental terms

This guide, published by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, explains environmental terms from “abatement” to “Wood Supply Agreements”. Good to have at the ready when listening to environmental experts or reading technical (or even non-technical) articles.

www.eco.on.ca/english/publicat/glossary.pdf

How to approach your Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP)

At the provincial level, we can learn from groups with greatly different interests and mandates from our own. Found on the Coalition of Family Physicians website, this article, entitled A Physician’s Guide to Political Lobbying, first appeared in the September 1995 issue of the Ontario Medical Review. It was reprinted with permission in Protecting the Niagara Escarpment: A Citizen’s Guide, by the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment, available from the Ontario Nature Shop.

www.cofp.com/general/politicallobbying.asp

Ontario municipal web pages

Don’t know what the web address is for your municipality, or whether it even has one? This page on the Association of Municipalities of Ontario website provides web links to Ontario’s municipalities.

http://199.202.235.157/ylg/ontario.html

Smart communities and land-use planning

If you want to understand why urban sprawl happens and how we can curb sprawl and create smarter communities that protect woodlands, wetlands, wildlife and farmlands, please read our book A Smart Future for Ontario: How to Protect Nature and Curb Urban Sprawl in Your Community. Download the whole book or individual chapters for free, or go to the Ontario Nature Shop to order a hard copy of the book for only $8.00.

www.ontarionature.org/enviroandcons/smart_growth/index.html