portion of equipment maintenance is done by commercial 

 garages. 



The automated data processing system for the fleet 

 management program is now operational in ten districts and 

 will be gradually implemented in other districts. 



AIR SERVICE SECTION 



The Section currently maintains a fleet of 43 aircraft, 

 operated out of 20 bases, to meet flying requirements of 

 the Department and special needs of other Government 

 departments and agencies. 



Helicopters were leased for varying periods during the 



year to provide transportation in forest fire fighting and 

 other Department operations. 



Total flying time for the year accumulated on 

 Department aircraft was 15,895:05 hours. The total 

 number of passengers carried was 56,893, and the total load 

 carried was 29,809,099 pounds. 



Thirty mercy and emergency flights were carried out by 

 aircraft as well as an emergency ambulance service at 

 Moosonee during spring break-up and fall freeze-up. These 

 flights accounted for a total of 96: 15 hours. 



One Grummen CS2F Tracker was purchased and 

 converted to a fire bomber to deliver long-term fire 

 retardant. 



LANDS AND WATERS BRANCH 



CONTROL SECTION 



The chief duty of the Section is the management of public 

 lands in the Province, including the orderly disposition 

 thereof, and the acquisition of privately owned lands for 

 various Government purposes. 



It is interesting to note that, fifty years ago, patent 

 documents were issued for about 100,000 acres of land 

 during a one-year period, while in the 1970s the yearly 

 average was less than 4,000 acres. 



During the past year, land use permits totalled 7,499, 

 and other transactions amounted to 2,522. 



A decrease of 1,108 in 'other transaction' on the year 

 was due to a temporary withdrawal of summer cottage lots 

 in 1971 to facilitate the transmission from sale and patent 

 to a lease method of disposition. At about the same time, 

 more rigid health requirements were imposed, resulting in 

 many of the lots being permanently withdrawn because 

 they did not measure up to the revised standards. New 

 regulations adopted in May, 1971, restricted the sale of 

 private summer cottage lots to Canadian citizens, for a 

 period of one year, following the registration of a 

 subdivision plan. 



The land acquisition program has been responsible for 

 securing about 467,311 acres of privately owned land for 

 government purposes since its inception in 1962. Of this 

 totals 17,712 acres were purchased during the past year. 



Special emphasis was placed on acquiring land on the 

 Niagara Peninsula where 2,950 acres were purchased for 

 recreational purposes, an additional 1,032 acres were 

 purchased in the Bronte Creek area for a major 

 urban-oriented park. 



Under Section 17 of The Public Lands Act, any area in a 

 territory without municipal organization may be designated 

 by the Minister as a restricted area for the purpose of 

 controlling building on private land. Two new areas were so 

 designated during 1972, bringing the total to 19. One was 

 designated to protect the aesthetic quahties of Lake 

 Superior Provincial Park, and the other to control 

 residential development in a proposed new mining venture, 

 north of Ignace. 



LAND USE CO-ORDINATION SECTION 



The purpose of this Section is to co-ordinate the use of 

 Crown land to meet the objectives of the Ministry requiring 

 a land input. Our objective is an integrated land use plan for 

 Ontario. 



LAND AND WATER INVENTORY 



One of the basic building blocks for our land use planning 

 concept is the land inventory. During 1971-2, we 

 completed the inventory for the settled portion of the 

 Province, which comprises roughly 32 per cent of its total 

 area. Work was also extended to important areas outside 

 the settled portion. 



Field work was undertaken, by the recreation sector, to 

 obtain the information concerning local land and water 

 features which were required to compile Ontario Land 

 Inventory Recreational Use Capability Maps for 1 50 map 

 sheets of a scale of 1 : 50,000. 



The forestry sector was primarily engaged in an office 

 project, compiling tabular summaries of the components of 

 each land unit of the Ontario Land Inventory Land 

 Classification maps which had been published at that time. 

 Compilation of summaries was completed for 28 map 

 sheets of a scale of 1 :250,000. 



Since there were insufficient field records for five 

 1:250,000 map sheets in northwestern Ontario, field work 

 was undertaken to secure this information. In addition, 

 field work was undertaken to permit the production of land 

 classification and timber use capability maps for one 

 1 :250,000 scale map area to test the mapping systems 

 which were proposed for a forthcoming program to extend 

 the land inventory to an additional 18 map sheets. 



In the wildlife sector, land classification for southern 

 Ontario became available to supplement the information 

 which was used to produce Canada Land Inventory Land 

 Capability maps for ungulates. Consequently, field work 

 was undertaken over an area of eight 1 :250,000 scale map 

 sheets in southern Ontario to evaluate wildlife use 

 capability rating, using this additional land classification 

 material. 



LAND USE PLANNING 



During 1971-2, we consolidated our ideas concerning the 

 preparation of the Strategic Land Use Plan for Ontario in a 

 booklet entitled "The Guidelines for Land Use Planning". 

 Ongoing work consisted of participating in the planning 

 for such areas as — Lake of the Woods Area, Quetico 

 Provincial Park, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Polar Bear 

 Provincial Park, Killarney Provincial Park, Sibley Provincial 

 Park, Algonquin Provincial Park, Lake Temagami Area, and 

 Hudson-James Bay Lowlands Area, and Pilot Land Use 

 Study, Kemptville. 



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