An Area Identification Number (Area ID) is assigned by the Natural Heritage and Land Use Planning Section of the Ministry of Natural Resources to identify individual land use areas. An example of an Area ID and a description of its components is show below:
The first letter in the Area ID indicates the primary land use designation (in this example E = Enhanced Management Area). The Area ID also includes a unique numeric identifier and a suffix, used to provide additional information.
The first letter of the Area ID indicates one of the primary land use designations
- G
- - General Use Area
- E
- - Enhanced Management Area (the ID for enhanced management areas is followed by a suffix which identifies the type of area - see below)
- P
- - Provincial Park
- C
- - Conservation Reserve
- R
- - Forest Reserve
- W
- - Wilderness Area
- D
- - Dedicated Protected Area is an additional primary land use designation used in the Far North.
Suffixes are used to identify the type of Enhanced Management Area
- n
- - Natural Heritage
- r
- - Recreation
- a
- - Remote Access
- w
- - Fish and Wildlife
- g
- - Great Lakes Coastal Areas
- c
- - Cultural Heritage (applicable only in the Far North)
Suffixes are also used with Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves
- a
- - Identifies recommended additions to existing Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves. When the recommended addition is regulated the "a" suffix is removed.
- d
- - Identifies that a Provincial Park or Conservation Reserve, or part of a Park or Conservation Reserve, is being deregulated.
- e
- - Identifies Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves that existed prior to 1999 and that were added to through the Ontario's Living Legacy (OLL) planning exercise. The letter "e" indicates that this was an "existing" protected area with an OLL addition. (Note: this differentiation is needed because policies for protected areas and additions created through the OLL planning exercise are different from policies for protected areas that existed prior to the OLL planning exercise.)
