Settled landscapes in Ontario have been shaped by activities in agriculture, forestry, land conversion, and urban development for more than 200 years. Once forest-dominated, these landscapes have become predominantly agricultural and urban lands, intersected by numerous roads and other infrastructure. This modification in the landscape’s natural structure has resulted in the reduction and fragmentation of forest cover in the region. Forests have not just been reduced in size, fragmented, and isolated, but they have been structurally and compositionally changed.
Today, unevenly placed fragments of second-growth woodlots, plantations, pioneer and early successional patches, in combination with tree planations, urban forests and planted trees characterize forests in this area.