“Professor Don Avery’s 10 years of meticulous research has resulted in a stunning history of Canada’s first large-scale environmental land use plan – the Niagara Escarpment Plan – a United Nations Biosphere and part of Ontario’s Greenbelt.

The book is wonderfully readable for everyone concerned for our planet’s future. It traces over 50 years of political and community advocacy to preserve natural habitats, protect farmland, challenge bad development, and maintain ecological corridors along the Escarpment – a majestic geological landform snaking 725 kilometres through south-central Ontario.

This book will inspire everyone who wants to participate in saving our natural environment. It documents a pivotal facet of Ontario’s history with a cast of characters and plot twists fit for any Shakespearean play.”

The 1985 Niagara Escarpment Plan managed to establish a workable environmental system, at least for the one-third of the Niagara Escarpment Planning Area that survived the Davis government’s 1978 cuts. But it had many enemies —notably large aggregate companies and influential real estate interests — who sought to undermine the Niagara Escarpment Commission’s role in this new governance system and in the court of public opinion.

The new ecology/conservation biology approach of the 1990s, with its emphasis on biodiversity and saving endangered species, forced changes on the operation of the Niagara Escarpment Commission. This campaign also provided opportunities for cooperative arrangements between environmental activist groups and the Niagara Escarpment Commission that lasted for over thirty years. In this period there was also collective protest by Indigenous communities within the region to regain fishing rights, assert ownership of popular recreational facilities, oppose assaults on old growth forests, and participate in a renewed Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network.

The subject of this book should attract readers who appreciate knowing more about Ontario’s natural heritage. While this is a scholarly work, based on a wide range of sources and different thematic arguments, the subject is presented clearly and without obtuse terminology. The book also has contemporary relevance because of the anti-environmental policies of the Ford government in Ontario and its relentless assault on the Greenbelt and Niagara Escarpment, which have often been challenged by a broad coalition of concerned citizens.