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| Pickerel weed. |
Two or three hundred years ago, Ontario’s Great Lakes were pristine, teeming with fish and other aquatic creatures, their banks tree-laden, rock faced or laced with sand dunes and beaches. Rivers and streams replenished their fresh water from a seemingly endless supply.
Plentiful wildlife – mammals, birds, even the little creatures we don’t often think of – insects, salamanders, turtles – inhabited the water and lands abutting them. When European settlers decided to homestead near these lakes, it must have seemed a never-ending untamed wilderness.
Fast forward to 21st century Ontario. Water in many lakes and rivers had been polluted, many forms of wildlife have disappeared and others are losing ground because most people had no idea that we would have any effect on what seemed endless. Today less than 30 per cent of the marshes and rich wetlands in southern Ontario still exists.
Fortunately many dedicated workers – our unsung heroes – are stepping up programs to preserve the coastal wetlands, alvars, marshes, rivers and streams not only to protect what’s left but to restore much of what’s been lost.
- One program area within the Ministry of Natural Resources deals particularly with our coastal habitats – the Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem or COA for short.
- The current Agreement has more than 240 partners involved with 200 projects in all areas of the Great Lakes Basin. The faces representing these organizations may vary around the different tables – but their zeal and enthusiasm doesn’t. They come together with one goal in mind – to restore, rehabilitate and conserve Great Lakes habitats.
We are beginning to understand that everything is interwoven
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| Regina (Gina) Varrin |
Did you know that more than eight million Ontario residents get their drinking water from the Great Lakes? People like you and me who aren’t science types have only just begun to understand that wetlands, rivers and streams which fill the Great Lakes also improve the water we drink.
The resource management professionals get it and want everyone else to know as well. Gina Varrin – a biodiversity conservation biologist – talks about the Great Lakes Wetlands Conservation Action Plan – a mouthful that they shorten to GLWCAP (it sounds like gluecap) – and about the members from nationally respected agencies involved in environmental conservation and protection:
- The Nature Conservancy of Canada
- Ontario Nature
- Conservation Ontario
- Ducks Unlimited Canada
- Environment Canada
- Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources among many.
Gina says, “I love working with the partners to share ideas and problem solve as a group.”
Why should we care? What does it matter if a road or a dry corner of field replaces a wet swampy spot on the landscape?
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| Rebecca Zeran |
Rebecca Zeran can tell you. She’s involved with the partners in the Ontario Eastern Habitat Joint Venture (OEHJV) and says, “Many of the remaining wetlands along the southern Great Lakes coast are vitally important to North America’s migratory waterfowl.” Wetland disappearance threatens nesting sites and food sources.
- As well, many of Ontario’s endangered or threatened birds, reptiles and amphibians use streams, swamps, marshes, bogs and fens for part or all of their life cycle.
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- Many native Great Lakes fish species spawn in these coastal wetlands which also provide habitat for their food – aquatic insects.
- Wetlands help prevent floods by slowing the drainage from the land. They store water, filter excess nutrients such as fertilizers, and trap sediments, all of which help to keep the waters of our lakes and rivers clean and healthy for fish, wildlife and humans.
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| Brian Potter |
People like Brian Potter – an aquatic ecologist with the Ministry – teach others how to evaluate wetlands. He says, “It’s important to make sure that everyone makes evaluations in the same way…” so that each assessment compares the same things across the province.
Municipal and conservation authority planners use these assessments to decide which wetlands need to be protected. Grade four kids know right off the bat Brian notes. He receives letters from them that are very clear:
“Wetlands are important and you need to do more to protect them!”
Dr. Janice Gilbert is a wetland ecologist who for three years led the Rondeau Wetland Rehabilitation Project which now has about 30 landowners involved – mostly farmers. They are helping to dig holding ponds to catch sediment.
“It’s the simplest thing and deals with the biggest problem,” says Janice referring to how these ponds catch, retain and change massive amounts of nutrients and sediment pouring off the land into the lakes.
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| Andy McKee |
In the Lake Huron Basins – Georgian Bay, Lake Huron main and North Channels – Andy McKee, COA coordinator and a biologist – manages a variety of projects including: planting trees and shrubs along buffer zones of creeks and rivers and building fences to keep cattle out of stream and creek beds.
He makes sure that these kinds of restoration and rehabilitation projects get money to proceed.
Ron Black – a wildlife biologist in Parry Sound – oversees inventory and evaluation of wetlands – tools needed by local municipalities in the Georgian Bay basin to decide which wetlands should be protected.
He says one of the most important things in protection and restoration is outreach – stewardship projects that encourage local residents to help with stream rehabilitation or to plant trees.
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| Steve Bowers |
Steve Bowers, with the Stewardship Council in Huron County and the Huron County Stream-Wetland Restoration Project agrees, “Landowners are key partners in all these projects. We can’t do it without them.”
Simple solutions to complex problems
Steve adds that protecting and restoring our precious wetlands is vital to everyone in the province because:
our economy – agriculture, business/industry, recreation
and most important our health…
… depend on the health of our Great Lakes.
There is more to learn about restoring, creating and conserving Ontario’s precious wetlands – see also:
• Restoring, enhancing, creating Great Lakes coastal and river wetlands• Part 1 - The Huron County Stream-Wetland Restoration Project
• Part 2 - The Rondeau Project
• Conserving/protecting wetlands and encouraging stewardship through the Ontario Eastern Habitat Joint Venture Partnership
• Working with municipalities to evaluate wetlands – what this means for biodiversity
Partners in wetland conservation and restoration across the province:
• Ducks Unlimited Canada
• The Nature Conservancy of Canada
• Ontario Nature
• Conservation Ontario and many individual conservation authorities
• Wildlife Habitat Canada
• Environment Canada
• Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
• Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
• Bird Studies Canada
• Ontario Stewardship Councils
• Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association
• Ontario’s Land Trust community
• Individual counties, municipalities and landowners in all Great Lakes regions
