How can you help?
To help protect the South Bracebridge Provincially Significant Wetland Complex and forests and species at risk threatened by the development of Muskoka Royal College (under appeal) you can, click HERE to DONATE at SMALL CHANGE FUND and receive a CHARITABLE TAX RECEIPT.  Our environmental protection work is volunteer but we appreciate any help with our legal costs to PROTECT MUSKOKA. 

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Muskoka forests, rock barrens and wetlands are important to Ontario's biodiversity and need immediate protection.  We need your help.

People from around the world come to Muskoka to experience the beauty of this important ecotone called "the land between".  

The South Bracebridge Provincially Significant Wetland Complex duly designated on June 23, 2023 is a crucial environmentally sensitive heritage land that protects the Lake Muskoka watershed and is home to endangered and threatened species and carbon sequestering forests.  It is in jeopardy by the building of an institutional boarding school, MUSKOKA ROYALE COLLEGE.  This is on land that had been designated open space and environmentally protected – until the Town Council of Bracebridge, outgoing Mayor Graydon Smith and the District of Muskoka approved changes to the zoning.  Currently there is a leave to appeal before the courts to reverse these approvals.  The hearing of witnesses concluded in January 2023.  The decision from the Ontario Land Tribunal member Hugh Wilkins was not in our favor although we did have a win or two in that the minimum buffer around wetlands was increased and further environmental studies must be completed prior to development.  As of February 2024 we have appealed the decision and are awaiting news to hear if our leave to appeal was accepted.  This could take some time.

We need your help to protect this imperiled land.   5300 citizens requested that an Ontario Wetlands Evaluation Study be performed on this land before the Town and District decide its fate.  Despite so much evidence pointing to this complex as a Provincially Significant Wetland those requests were ignored.   5300 citizens and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry's own protocols demanded that a Species at Risk study be performed to protect the habitat of the 27 at-risk, threatened or endangered species found here, but those demands were ignored.  5300 citizens asked that the road that would be built over the wetlands, which had been approved decades before current environmental protections, be re-assessed - but they were not heard.  Instead, through the efforts of supporters and the South Bracebridge Environmental Protection Group we had to go the many extra miles to get the designation of a PSW.

In a public report, the Auditor General of Ontario has confirmed what we citizens have long witnessed - that very necessary protocols and legal protections for the environment are being overlooked amidst a climate change crisis.  Protecting South Bracebridge wetlands is imperative to fulfilling Ontario's Wetland Conservation Strategy for Ontario - 2017-2030 to conserve and protect our precious wetlands and Ontario's rich biodiversity.

We ask your help ensuring that the procedures and protections that have been put in place to protect the natural heritage, environmental sustainability and attractive qualities that make Muskoka the destination it is are followed.

Thank you for taking action to protect the South Bracebridge Provincially Significant Wetlands!