Once again, our vulnerability brings us all together. Let us take time today, on World Wetlands Day, to consider our privilege to live and work here in Niagara—a community built over rich Indigenous histories. We are guests here, and we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for the water and the people who live here and the generations to come.
We recognize the nations and peoples to whom we owe the biodiversity we are trying to protect. They tell the powerful stories that we need to hear to build trust and relationships and to engage people. Their narratives take big abstract concepts like climate adaptation and make them concrete and tangible. A body of incredible knowledge has evolved over time where Indigenous people lived within the environmental limitations of this land. If these accounts on World Wetlands Day can move us toward action, we should make those decisions with intention and gratitude.
We are witnessing the piecemeal chipping away of Provincially Significant Wetlands (PSWs) across Ontario. Complexes of smaller, connected wetlands must be evaluated as a whole, with the sum being greater than the total of its parts, rather than the parts being pulled out and treated as individual little bits. That is what is happening right now on our doorstep. We need to be concerned about the extension of Merritt Road and the partitioning of the Niagara Street-Cataract Road Woodlot Wetland Complex, especially when there are three alternative corridors: Port Robinson, Cataract, and Quaker Roads.
Wetlands are among the most complicated, most diverse, most fertile, and productive ecosystems on our planet. They are the ecological equivalent of tropical rainforests and coral reefs. Operating like a giant sponge, our wetlands hold water and slowly release it into the watershed, slowing the flow and reducing erosion. The crisis for our wetlands is not in the future but very much in the present. Too often, we have treated wetlands as wastelands. Destroying and degrading our wetlands has caused flooding, extinction of species, and a decline in water quality. If we destroy or damage our wetlands, it can be difficult or impossible to replace their functions.
The good news is that nature is our friend. Leave our wetlands alone and they can recover.
There are doors that can be opened to protect wetlands. Municipal policies and practices matter, and it is important to put in place strong, usable policies and zoning bylaws to protect wetlands, and say no to development proposals that would negatively affect local wetlands. Identifying and designating PSWs is hugely important because they need a very high level of protection. We need an informed and engaged public to stand up for our wetlands and be alert to changes in the wetland boundaries just as was done to protect the urban boundaries and farmland.
World Wetland Day is a day of promise, and it must mobilize us to insist and ensure that no matter what, we protect nature. Thank you to those who help to build local awareness about the benefits and the real importance of keeping wetlands on the landscape as nature-based solutions to climate change.
