Paving over Ontario’s wetlands paradise

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Recently a “save our wetlands” petition from the Green Party of Ontario (GPO) found its way to my inbox. Southern Ontario has lost 75 per cent of its original wetlands, the GPO said, and Premier Doug Ford is selling off what’s left to deep-pocketed developers.

Apparently, with Ford’s latest giveaway, a prominent Progressive Conservative party donor will turn a 54-acre wetland in Durham Region into a warehouse. Even though the wetlands are protected, “Ford is abusing special zoning orders to sell them off,” the GPO says.

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I signed the petition. Not because it came from the Green Party. But because I’m a lifelong wetlands enthusiast.

As a young boy I spent countless hours exploring neighbourhood streams, ponds and marshes. Terms like “biodiversity” and “ecosystem” weren’t in common usage then, but I think I intuited the value and necessity of the multitude of benefits wetlands provide.

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Wetlands, it seems, just can’t catch a break. Throughout history they’ve been misunderstood, underappreciated and maligned.

Folklore, legends, mythology and modern cinema, for example, are chockfull of images of wetlands, swamps especially, as malevolent places where evil lurks and death stalks.

For its part, the English language is fraught with idioms that disparage wetlands. He’s a “stick in the mud.” I’m just “swamped.” Her name was “dragged through the mire.”

But wetlands are vitally important “natural infrastructure.” They provide critical ecosystem services including water filtration, flood retention, erosion control, nutrient cycling and groundwater recharge.

They also make landscapes more resilient to the anticipated impacts of climate change including flooding, drought and biodiversity loss. And they possess an enormous capacity to store carbon.

Wetlands have even been called “biological supermarkets.” They produce vast volumes of food that support a remarkable degree of biodiversity.

According to the Chicago-based The Wetlands Initiative (TWI), “in terms of number and variety of species supported, (globally) wetlands are as rich as rainforests and coral reefs.”

Wetlands also contribute $14 billion annually in economic benefits for Ontarians, TWI says. Commercially important products including fish, blueberries, cranberries, timber and wild rice – all are harvested from wetlands.

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With attributes like these, surely wetlands should be protected and preserved, not destroyed.

Yet, under cover of the praise Premier Ford has received from many for his impassioned handling of Ontario’s COVID-19 response, his government has quietly continued the assault on wetlands (and on the natural environment generally) that it launched after coming to power in June 2018.

Most recently – on Nov. 5 – the Ford government introduced new legislation proposing numerous changes to the Conservation Authorities Act. Ontario Nature, a conservation organization that protects wild species and spaces through conservation, education and public engagement, says the alterations will “severely curtail the role of Conservation Authorities in watershed planning and management.”

The legislation will “undermine efforts to conserve biodiversity and build community resilience to climate change,” Ontario Nature said.

The proposed changes are buried out of ready sight in Bill 229, an omnibus budget bill. That means the public’s right to comment under the Environmental Bill of Rights is overridden.

Conservation authorities – there are 36 province-wide – are understandably alarmed. Kim Gavine, general manager of Conservation Ontario, the umbrella organization for conservation authorities, told The Globe and Mail that the legislation takes away the role of the authorities to provide science-based input on development applications.

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It also puts the power to issue permits for contentious developments directly into the hands of the minister of natural resources and forestry. The minister would have new power to overturn a conservation authority’s decision to refuse to issue a permit for development.

All of which means that important decisions could potentially be driven by commercial and political interests rather than what’s best for the natural environment.

Tim Grey, executive director of Environmental Defense, said the new legislation “strips the conservation authorities of any powers they had to protect communities from flooding, or protect wetlands or forests.”

“They can still give advice,” Grey said of the authorities, “but a developer can say, ‘Thanks, but we don’t have to listen to you.’”

Ford may be worthy of commendation for his handling of the novel coronavirus, although an increasing number of commentators dispute this. But on wetlands and other natural infrastructure in Ontario, the premier seems either blind to or dismissive of their inherent value.

The lyrics of a famous song by iconic Canadian singer Joni Mitchell still ring true today: “They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.”

Gary W. Kenny is retired from a career in international human rights and development and is a writer residing in Grey County.