Creation of a new protected area adjoining Grand lac des Cèdres

Background 

The "protected area" project started in 2016, when the APLC made its initial request to the Ministère de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques (MELCC). The request for the creation of a protected area comes as a result of the inventory of rare plants found west of Grand Lac des Cèdres. The designation would protect these vulnerable and threatened plants and ensure that no logging or other development would ever disturb this important ecological site. The plant of interest is the Conopholis americana, and it was found in a red oak grove on the slope west of Grand Lac des Cèdres.

This request is still a work in progress, given that the creation of new zones in Quebec requires many working committees and it just takes time. We are following this file closely.

When the new Schéma d’aménagement et de développement (SAD, the land use and development plan) was put in place in October 2020, the APLC argued that the zoning should be changed to support the creation of a protected area. The MRC told us that the decision to create a new protected area was not within the MRC’s jurisdiction, and thus we had to address our requests to the MELCC.

 

Chronology

 

2021

  • Pressure from environmental groups in early 2021 to change the target of 17%
    April 22, 2021: revised MELCC commitment increasing protected areas in Quebec to 30% by 2030 (French only)

 

2020

  • Relaunch of the file and its transfer to Mme Catherine Plasse of the MELCC
    File review in late 2020; no Outaouais project was selected

 

2018

  • Relaunch of the file and message sent to M. Bouchard
  • Positive feedback on our proposal, but the Outaouais region was not yet on the list of new protected areas—we had to be patient

 

2016