With both feet in a swamp, water up to her knees, Audréanne Loiselle seems in her element. This doctoral student at the Université de Montréal is taking part in a wetland restoration project in Coaticook. The duty met her on this occasion to understand how such initiatives, particularly on agricultural land, could, among other things, help prevent flooding and promote biodiversity.
Peat bogs, marshes, swamps, ponds: all these wetlands, the researcher knows them like the back of her hand. When she sees one, she is able to name all the plants in it and distinguish a swamp from a bog (almost) with her eyes closed. She has been studying them for five years, so that they are better protected and restored.
The project she is working on, which is currently being developed, brings together no less than seven researchers from the Université de Montréal and Université Laval. It will consist of collaborating with the regional county municipality (MRC) and agricultural producers to leave uncultivated strips of land a few meters long located on the banks of the Coaticook River, in exchange for financial compensation paid to farmers for the loss of associated productivity.
According to Audréanne Loiselle, the watercourse will thus be able to regain what she calls its “space of freedom”. “The idea is to give him space to let him go through his teenage crisis in the spring, so to swell and overflow, without flooding the fields”, explains the doctoral student.
If the river has more space to occupy, it may also take on a more meandering shape, rather than being in a straight line. This could help slow the current and prevent possible flooding, while promoting biodiversity and the reappearance of wetlands.
Wetlands and agricultural land
According to the researcher, the restoration of wetlands is particularly important on agricultural lands in southern Quebec. These act like sponges, and retain water during floods or heavy rains. However, “we have drained a lot of wetlands on these lands, and that is one of the reasons why we are left with floods today,” she explains.
Since the 1930s, in fact, many of them have been drained for cultivation. “Between Quebec and Montreal, what we call black land, where we now grow corn or horticulture, all of this was peat bog before,” explains Line Rochefort, professor at Laval University. , who is not working on the project in Coaticook.
Marshes and swamps, usually located along waterways, have also suffered heavy losses. A study published in Nature last February thus showed that, in the St. Lawrence watershed, more than half of the wetlands have been destroyed. “With the rectification of watercourses and the digging of ditches in the agricultural territory, now all the hydrological dynamics are completely anthropized in these environments. There has been an immense loss of these territories, which has never been quantified in southern Quebec”, deplores Sylvain Jutras, also a professor at Laval University, who does not participate in the initiative of researchers in Estrie.
The reality of farmers
On the farmers’ side, this desire to protect and restore wetlands is welcomed “favourably”, according to a 2018 brief from the federation of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA) of Lanaudière. However, ” [elle] adds an additional concern to an agricultural area that is increasingly under pressure”.
Lise Got, planning consultant at the UPA de l’Estrie, confirmed that although the project is still “very embryonic”, the concerns set out in this document are probably still relevant today among producers in Coaticook. She indicated that the UPA and the MRC would meet with them this month to discuss the initiative with them.
This approach is part of a more general context in a context where, since 2017, farmers have been forced by law to pay heavy compensation when they deteriorate wetlands located on their land.
The 2018 brief also points out that compensation in the form of the granting of agricultural land equivalent to the area lost for the preservation of a wetland would be preferable to financial compensation, when possible.
An essential dialogue
Researcher Sylvain Jutras insists on the importance of going on a case-by-case basis when it comes to protecting and restoring wetlands, given the realities of the agricultural environment. “It’s an eternal debate, there is no magic solution,” he sighs. Ideally, we should better protect wetlands, restore those that have been disturbed to the extent possible, and allow the destruction, or at least the disturbance, of certain environments that are less important, by carefully selecting them. . But it’s very long to do, you have to do it site by site. »
Audréanne Loiselle also emphasizes that dialogue with producers is essential in this restoration process. “It’s important to take the time to listen to them, to understand their realities,” she explains. The biggest victims of environmental laws are not real estate developers, but farmers. Because every time we toughen up the laws, we tighten the screw on their wallets. »