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5. Protect, preserve, and enhance natural areas within the City’s <br />park system to provide residents with opportunities to connect <br />with nature <br />5.1Provide at least one contiguous acre of woods, prairie, or <br />wetland within each half of the City <br />5.1.1Create additional natural areas if opportunities arise or <br />demand warrants <br />5.2Strengthen Gervais Mill Park as the community’s primary <br />natural area park <br />5.2.1Limit development in Gervais Mill to improvements that <br />support passive recreation or improve water quality and <br />habitat while meeting wetland restrictions <br />5.2.2Provide access for people of all abilities by maintaining a <br />soft-surface ADA accessible trail in Gervais Mill <br />5.2.3Expand access to Gervais Mill by connecting residents to <br />it via trails, sidewalks, and bikeways, such as a sidewalk <br />on Noel Drive <br />5.3Develop and implement natural resource management plans <br />that ensure natural areas are ecologically healthy, diverse and <br />sustainable <br />5.3.1Develop and implement a forest management plan for <br />wooded areas at Spooner Park, Gervais Mill Park, and <br />Nadeau Wildlife Area <br />5.3.2Create maps that identify and protect high-value <br />ecological areas or areas that have the potential to be of <br />higher ecological value <br />5.4Collaborate and maintain partnerships that plan for and fund <br />ecological restoration and management of natural areas in Little <br />Canada <br />6. Maximize the benefits of Linear Parks <br />6.1Continue to use linear parks to make connections and provide <br />natural areas <br />6.1.1Strengthen the ecological services provided by linear <br />parks by naturalizing their landscapes and increasing <br />biodiversity, habitat and provide educational/interpretive <br />information about these benefits <br />NATURE DEFICIT DISORDER <br />In his 2009 national best-selling book <br />Last Child in the Woods, Richard <br />Louv coined the phrase nature-deficit <br />disorder to describe the impacts of <br />a growing disconnection between <br />children and the outdoors. Research <br />increasingly shows the benefits of <br />time spent in the natural world include <br />increased creativity and mental <br />capacity and reduced obesity, anxiety, <br />and depression rates in kids. <br />In addition to concrete and bituminous, <br />properly constructed soft-surface trails can <br />meet the ‘firm and stable’ requirement of <br />accessible trail design <br />CITY OF LITTLE CANADA - PARK SYSTEM MASTER PLAN41