Wetland strategy fraught with risks, op-ed by Earth and Environmental Sciences professor Barry Warner

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

water institute members in the media
The Waterloo Chronicle and the Waterloo Region Record published an op-ed by Water Institute member and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Professor Barry Warner.

Warner studies the dynamics of natural, restored, and created wetlands using a variety of ecological and paleoecological indicators. These methods are used to study wetland ecosystems across a variety of spatial scales and temporal scales.

Wetland strategy fraught with risks

By Barry Warner, Waterloo Chronicle, Sept. 19, 2016

In early August, the Ontario government issued a draft for a new wetland conservation strategy for the province. It contains many positive elements, not the least of which is the government's ongoing recognition of the exceptional value of wetlands and the commitment to reverse the loss of them and protect what is left.

However, they are proposing to introduce the concept of wetland offsetting.

<--break->This is opening the door to a host of new, expensive and unnecessary challenges that were considered and rejected more than 30 years ago when our first provincial wetland policy was being developed.

It must be rejected again. Anything less is a serious step backwards that will achieve little.

roseville swamp
Ontario's early wetland policy was ahead of its time.

We realized from the review of other wetland conservation approaches back then that a policy of "no net loss of wetland function" was far superior. Wetland function gave us a policy that was all-encompassing in capturing the diversity of types and recognizing the interdependence and dynamism of processes that characterize and sustain wetland ecosystems.

We deliberately incorporated the concept of "wetland function" to avoid the less effective "no net loss of wetland" approach used in the United States.[...]

Read the full op-ed in the Waterloo Region Record.