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London has 21 Environmentally Significant Areas. The areas exist on both private and public land. Around half of these areas are managed by the Upper Thames Conservation Authority. Brandon Williamson is a land management technician for the conservation and he provided some insight on ESA’s.
Designation
In order to be designated as an ESA, the City of London has what Williamson describes as an exhaustive list of criteria that must be met.
“Some of those things would be, sensitive ecological features like bogs, or open grassland prairie Habitat, habitat for species at risk, that type of thing”
Williamson explained that when it comes to ESA’s size is a major factor.
“A small average residential yard size plot is probably not big enough to make enough of an ecological contribution on the landscape. It has to be a few hectares in size, at least.”
The Purpose
“The purpose is to recognize and maintain and preserve these areas, so they’re not developed. It’s the highest ecological designation in the city. So they’re preserved in as much of a natural state as possible.”
Williamson spoke on the importance of protecting and preserving these areas.
“It’s critical, considering we’re in an urban environment here. So having these areas is really important ecologically. It provides a place for lots of different wildlife to live and cleans our air, our water, and all those environmental ecological benefits that go along with it.”
In addition to the ecological benefits, Williamson says ESA’s can also have an effect on Mental Health.
“Many studies have proven that being outside in the environment, especially a healthy environment with lots of birds and other wildlife around is really beneficial for people’s mental health. All of these things combined just make it really important that we keep these areas in our city, in our community. For the wildlife, and for our benefit as well.”
Protection
The Conservation has five mandates they follow in order to properly protect these areas.
Education
“We educate the public, whether it’s on a trail, doing interviews like this, going to school programs or through email and phone calls. So we talk to the public and have all sorts of activities and features within the area trails. Wildlife, fishing, and all sorts of other opportunities.”
Enforcement
“The enforcement component is we do enforce the Parks and Recreation Area bylaw. So things like we want to make sure people keep the dogs on leash, but keep the bikes out of there, overnight camping, and there’s a few other things that go along with it. But those are kind of our highlighted things that we like to make sure that people abide by those rules, as well as stay on the managed hiking trails.”r
Risk management
“We have about 60 kilometers of hiking trails that we manage in different levels of activity on those trails. We do everything from building those trails, maintaining and pruning them, building, maintaining, and repair all the structures, boardwalks, bridges, and barricades. We also put up signage throughout the trial areas, as well as tree risk assessment and the hazard Tree Removal for these trail systems.”
Encroachment
“We work with landowners that that back onto, or are adjacent to the ESA s. We work with them to make sure they’re not encroaching storing materials of theirs on city property or, dumping yard waste onto city property creating an ecological issue.”
Invasive species
“There are lots of different invasive plant and forest pest species that are present in the ESA and they can really do a lot of ecological damage. They can take over a lot of the native species, as well as reduce the biodiversity of the plant portfolios. Which reduces the biodiversity or the availability of that habitat for, a diverse suite of wildlife species.”
The Upper Thames Conservation Authority has a four-person team that manages 780 hectares of land across the City. “We manage over 12 ESA’s and it’s a really diverse set of habitat. Within all of these ESA’s you can find a lowland forest, you can find swamps, wetlands, creeks, and upland forest as well. So it’s really amazing to see the diversity within each ESA.”
You can visit the Upper Thames Conservation Authority website to find more information on ESA’s as well as trail maps.
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