strong area, northwest of Lake Nipigon, will encourage 

 orderly residential development within Armstrong townsite. 

 The other area was set up to control residential development 

 in an area abutting Quetico Provincial Park. There are now 

 17 restricted areas in the Province; they have a combined 

 area of more than 3,000 square miles. 



LAND ACQUISITION AND 

 PLANNING SECTION 



The Section was formed in 1963 to implement the program 

 announced in the Speech from the Throne in the fall session 

 of 1962. This program anticipated the expenditure of $200 

 million over a twenty-year period for the purchase of land 

 for recreation, wildlife management, parks, reforestation 

 and other resource management uses. The Section is also 

 concerned with an Ontario land inventory, special land-use 

 studies, water management, and the administration of public 

 forest roads. 



LAND ACQUISITION UNIT 



Since the program's inception until March 31, 1971, 449,599 

 acres of land have been acquired. During the 1970-1 fiscal 

 year, 2,995 acres were purchased for the preservation of the 

 Niagara Escarpment. In Rondeau and Algonquin Provincial 

 Parks, a total of 14 leases were acquired in accord with the 

 established policy of reverting these areas to a wilderness 

 state for public rather than private use. 



During the year, the Treasury Board approved the pur- 

 chase of 10 projects of 16,411 acres, and Ontario Parks Inte- 

 gration Board approved another 32 proposals involving 

 3,561 acres. 



LAND INVENTORY UNIT 



The Unit continued to carry out an inventory of the lands of 

 the Province for both national and provincial requirements. 



The national phase is the joint Federal/Provincial Canada 

 Land Inventory Program which covers the agricultural and 

 marginal agricultural areas of the Province. These lands are 

 described in terms of physiographic and biological features 

 and evaluated for their capability to provide recreational 

 experience, forest and wildlife crops. Field work for recrea- 

 tion, wildlife and forestry evaluations was completed on the 

 Agreement area during the year. 



The cartographic production has been maintained at a 

 high level. The following represents a summary of the num- 

 ber of maps compiled and drafted. 



(a) Canada Land Invenlory 



Sector Map Scale 



1 :250,000 1 :50,000 



Recreation 25 522 



Wildlife 28 538 



Forestry 31 — 



(b) Ontario Land Inventory 



Sector Map Scale 



1 :250,000 1 :50,000 



Land Classification 26 — 



Forestry 26 — 



Wildlife — 400 



Recreation 1 — 



ACCESS ROADS 



During the year, maintenance was provided and improve- 

 ments carried out on 300 forest access roads comprising 

 some 3,000 miles. This is an increase of approximately 500 

 miles over the previous year. In addition, a considerable 

 mileage of abandoned logging roads was repaired for moose 

 management purposes. 



As provided for under Part 1A of The Public Lands Act, 

 35 roads' with a total of 555 miles are now designated as 

 public forest roads for traffic control purposes. 



Eight private forest roads, comprising 227 miles, are now 

 under agreement with the Department for shared costs of 

 maintenance. One of the most noteworthy of these is an 

 interprovincial link which connects the towns of Cochrane, 

 Ontario, and LaSarre, Quebec. This program, which provides 

 for the public use of these private roads, will be expanded 

 in the next fiscal year. 



WATER MANAGEMENT UNIT 

 The Unit is responsible for the management of water re- 

 sources through approval of dams under The Lakes and 

 Rivers Improvement Act; setting the terms and conditions, 

 and preparing water power lease agreements under The 

 Water Powers Regulation Act; administration of licences of 

 occupation for dams constructed principally for log driving 

 purposes; and administration of the reconstruction of old 

 dams. In addition, special engineering consultation services 

 are provided in fisheries and waterfowl management 

 projects. 



There was a total of 41 approvals of sites and plans for 

 dam construction. Three water power lease agreements 

 were completed and issued; two of these were renewals of 

 lease agreements which had expired, and one was for a new 

 power development. There were no licences of occupation 



56 



