A forest locals saved from the loggers 40 years ago is now protected forever

In 1983, residents and naturalists in Whitby, Ontario organised to stop the logging of Thickson's Woods — the last old-growth white pine forest on Lake Ontario's north shore. This week their patience became permanent: Ontario Nature has taken ownership of 24.86 acres across five parcels, making the woods its 27th nature reserve. The small forest punches far above its size, sheltering 75 rare species — prothonotary warblers, wood thrushes, monarch butterflies, endangered butternut trees — along 400 metres of shoreline. Local volunteers, including the Durham Region Field Naturalists, will keep caring for it, as they have for four decades.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program