THUNDER BAY – An explosion of interest in Thunder Bay-area conservation areas is being welcomed by the Lakehead Region Conservation Authority, but the organization says it needs to step up enforcement of its user fees to maintain the amenities.
Visits to the LRCA’s eight conservation areas and two publicly accessible forest management properties, which include local mainstays like the Cascades, Mills Block, and MacKenzie Point, rose by more than 50 per cent in 2020.
Those areas typically draw around 350,000 visits a year, said communications manager Ryan Mackett. Last year, the LRCA estimates they received 475,000 visits.
“Obviously people are trying to reconnect with nature and go for more hikes and get outside,” he said. “This is great, because it’s one of the few things we’re technically allowed to do during the various lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.”
Aside from a few instances of vandalism, the LRCA reported surprisingly few problems associated with the influx of visitors, many of them new users, during the pandemic.
“I definitely need to thank visitors – for the most part, people have been fantastic,” Mackett said. “People have been keeping their dogs on leash, picking up their garbage.”
The rise in visits has also been accompanied by an “incredible” increase in the number of users purchasing the LRCA’s yearly pass, the Explore Card.
The LRCA normally sells around 250 Explore Cards in a year. Less than halfway into 2021, more than 1,100 have been purchased.
It’s an encouraging development, said Mackett, but not enough to make much more than a dent in the overall problem.
The LRCA estimates only two per cent of visitors pay its mandatory user fees, either through the $5 day use fee, or the Explore Card, which costs $40 a year (fees were raised from $2 in 2021, while the cards were raised from $30).
The LRCA hopes to nudge visitors into contributing by introducing pay-and-display units at two of its most popular locations, the Cascades and Mission Marsh, backed up by enforcement under municipal parking bylaws. The units are expected to be in place in the fall, and other areas could follow, with the Silver Harbour Conservation Area likely prioritized for 2023.
Ultimately, Mackett said, the step is about ensuring the natural gems are sustained into the future.
“We’ve operated long enough with sort of this honour system which really hasn’t worked out too well for us,” Mackett said. “We’re hoping with this new influx of visitors, and our ability to enforce some rules and regulations, we’ll be able to continue to offer the areas to the same level of care people have come to expect from us.”
“It’s been a bit of a struggle, especially since we don’t receive any provincial funding to operate and maintain our conservation areas – that was cut in 1995.”
Many people still aren’t aware the fees are mandatory, Mackett said.
“We understand there may be some misconception in the public that when we ask people to put their money in the coin box or to buy an Explore card, that we’re asking for a donation, and that’s not the case.”
The agency is in the process of creating more noticeable signage to flag the fees, and while enforcement will be stepped up by provincial offences officers, Mackett said the focus will be on education.
“We’re definitely going to want to take the approach where we educate the public about why there is a fee in the first place,” he said. “That money we’re generating from fees and Explore cards literally goes toward gas in the chainsaws for cutting down hazard trees, gas in our lawnmowers, garbage removal… [those are significant expenses], and we need a way to pay for it.”
