Healthy Watershed Manager Presents Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority Board With Potential Opportunities In Their Watershed

by Bob Montgomery

Healthy Watershed Manager Mari Veliz says periodically, the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority is presented with the opportunity to improve their watershed, and now is one of those times.

Valiz told board members at their last meeting there are areas within their jurisdiction that are remarkably bio-diverse, which means they are home to a wide variety of plants and animals. She says, for example, in some areas of their watershed they have some turtles that are very rare anywhere else in the province, but they're doing very well in the Ausable Bayfield watershed. Veliz also points out the presence of those particular turtles would also be an indicator of the presence of a wide range of other plant and animal species and at this time the federal government is providing funding to support this animal diversity, do some monitoring, and do some work on the landscape to make the habitat better.

Veliz says they have been successful in getting funding for that work. To quality they had to be able to leverage the community's interest in the work they wanted to do and in this case the support from the community was there. The funding will go towards three steps that Veliz calls Save, Seed and Steward actions.

She explains, the ‘Save’ part is protecting the areas that already have good bio-diversity. The ‘Seed’ part is anywhere people want to plant trees or build wetlands. And in areas where they have a working landscape, either for urbanizing areas or agricultural landscaping, there are best practices that will help mitigate some of the affects of the activities they're undertaking, qualifying as the ‘Steward’ part. So, it’s just a matter of trying to match the needs of the different land owners to qualify for the funding.

Veliz says a glance at a Google map shows a significant amount of native forest in Southwestern Ontario and that's not surprising because it is a bit warmer than other parts of the province, and the warmer temperatures usually attract more diversity in plants and species. But Veliz points out, it's also where we all live, and our rich farm land is here, so some concessions have to be made. The federal government realizes that this is an important area and has made some funding available to protect the habitat in these areas.