As Ontario dismantles 79 years of local conservation, it isn't just redrawing boundaries. It is silencing the people who know the land best.
For 79 years, Ontario's conservation authorities followed the water, not political boundaries. Thirty-six authorities, each one tied to a specific watershed, a specific place.
They were organized around the logic of the land itself: where rivers run, where floods gather, where ecosystems begin and end. It was governance shaped by geography, not politics.
Each authority employed specialists who knew their territory intimately. Ecologists. Water resource engineers. Foresters. Environmental educators. GIS analysts. People who had built entire careers understanding the particular patterns of one river system, one stretch of shoreline, one community.
These aren't bureaucrats. They are stewards. They know the ecology and the economics. The people and the politics of place. And they are best positioned to make those things work together.
In late 2025, Ontario announced plans to collapse all 36 conservation authorities into just seven regional bodies, overseen by a new centralized agency: the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency (OPCA).
After 79 years of watershed-based local stewardship, the province is framing this as necessary modernization.
“Cut red tape. Streamline permitting. Get shovels in the ground sooner.”
The government argued the current system was fragmented, with inconsistent policies and fees, causing “uncertainty and delays for builders, landowners and farmers.” The solution, they said, was consolidation.
“We do the work because we love the place we live. We know the people and politics of the location, and also know the environment, and are best placed to make those things work together.”Conservation Authority Insider
But conservation professionals see something very different unfolding. Collapsing 36 watershed-specific authorities into large regions will risk undermining science-based decision-making, alienating grassroots connections, and leading to the loss of conservation specialists.
Highly specialized staff won't accept redeployment to generic regional roles. Decades of place-based knowledge will walk out the door.
Relationships with landowners, farmers, and Indigenous harvesters, built over years of trust, cannot survive absorption into a distant entity.
The restructuring is explicitly tied to Ontario's housing agenda. “Streamlined approvals” signals development consistency over environmental considerations.
Replacing 36 locally-governed boards with 7 regional ones will concentrate power at Queen's Park. Communities stand to lose their voice.
In every announcement.
Every policy document.
Every strategic plan for the restructuring.
No reference to Indigenous Peoples.
No mention of treaty rights.
No acknowledgment of UNDRIP.
No framework for co-governance.
“In 2026, in a country that has legislated alignment with UNDRIP, this silence is not neutral. It is a signal.”
Section 35 of the Constitution Act recognizes and affirms Indigenous and treaty rights. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms the right of Indigenous peoples to participate in decisions affecting their lands. The TRC Calls to Action demand reconciliation of Indigenous legal traditions with Crown jurisdiction.
This is not simply a matter of language or symbolic inclusion.
It is about whether Indigenous Peoples are positioned as external stakeholders consulted episodically, or as enduring rightsholders whose knowledge, laws, and relationships to place are foundational to conservation outcomes.
Strategic silence does not negate the duty to consult. It increases the risk that consultation is treated as reactive rather than embedded, transactional rather than relational, fragmented rather than coherent.
Governance systems are not only defined by what they include, but by what they leave unsaid.
While Ontario prepares for this disruptive reform, British Columbia chose differently.
In 2020, B.C. launched the First Nations–B.C. Wildlife and Habitat Conservation Forum, a provincial-level body where First Nations and government collaboratively shape wildlife and habitat stewardship.
First Nations didn't just advise. They co-authored strategy and legislation.
The Forum co-drafted the provincial Together for Wildlife strategy, proposed amendments to the Wildlife Act to support reconciliation, and published “Cultivating Abundance: First Nations Perspectives from the Forum,” injecting an Indigenous lens into policy.
Indigenous knowledge was treated not as a supplement to Western science, but as a legitimate and distinct management tool, owned by the Nations, stemming from their laws and cultural experience.
Tripartite committees with equal representation. First Nations have a say and a vote, not just an advisory seat.
OCAP principles upheld. Indigenous communities decide how their traditional knowledge and data are used and shared.
Indigenous knowledge treated alongside Western science. Both “eyes” reveal insights that neither alone would catch.
First Nations Guardians monitor, manage, and restore lands, recognized as extensions of conservation, not add-ons.
Ontario's conservation authority amalgamation presents a rare moment of institutional redesign. Moments like this are infrequent, and the choices made now will shape conservation governance for decades.
Ontario now faces a choice.
Imagine regional conservation authorities where a Chief and a Mayor co-chair the board, where Elders' ecological knowledge is used alongside flood models, where a permit system respects treaty rights before greenlighting development, and where youth from local First Nations are hired as the next generation of watershed guardians.
The disruption is already happening. The question is whether it becomes a catalyst.
The question before us is not whether Ontario must act, but whether it will choose to lead with foresight, humility, reciprocity, and relational integrity.
It can replicate fragmentation at a larger scale, or it can use consolidation as a moment to embed coherence, relationship, and shared stewardship.
For civic and Indigenous leaders, the path forward is collaborative advocacy. Municipalities, environmental groups, and First Nations can form coalitions to demand that the province implement this amalgamation in a way that embeds co-governance tables, Indigenous advisory roles, data sovereignty protections, and strong alignment with UNDRIP.
Good governance and economic progress are not at odds with Indigenous leadership. They are enhanced by it.
Caring for our watersheds is a responsibility best shared: between governments, communities, and the First Peoples who have cared for these lands since time immemorial.