PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Quebec has lowered the amounts that must be paid by promoters in certain regions to compensate for the disappearance of the wetlands that they are wiping off the map, writes our columnist.
The appalling revelations about the destruction of wetlands in Quebec follow one another and, alas, are similar.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Since the beginning of October, our journalist Éric-Pierre Champagne has told us that:
- Within a year, 3.8 km2 of wetlands have been destroyed in Quebec (for a 12-month period ending at the end of March 2022).
- Of these wetlands, nearly half are found (1.8 km2) in the Montérégie, Laurentides, Laval, Chaudière-Appalaches and Centre-du-Québec regions. However, we know to what extent in southern Quebec, these environments are becoming rare and any loss has serious consequences.
- Less than 3% of the approximately 100 million collected to compensate for the destruction of wetlands over the past five years have been reinvested to create new ones or restore them, as planned.
It’s a real fiasco.
This demonstrates that the system set up five years ago to curb the destruction of wetlands is not working.
And it is also the proof that it is urgently necessary to rethink this system. Like a piece of Emmental, it is full of holes, all very visible. It is enough to question experts of this crucial file to note it.
Remember that with the adoption of Act respecting the conservation of wetlands and bodies of waterfive years ago, Quebec sought to “avoid the loss of wetlands and bodies of water” and to “promote the design of projects that minimize their impact on these environments”.
But what we see, five years later, is that not enough is being done to avoid the loss of wetlands at all costs.
It’s a bit as if the system of financial compensation, set up at that time, had come to sabotage the initial idea of the reform, which was to curb the destruction of wetlands.
In a way, this destruction has become morally more acceptable since a given sum is paid in exchange for the authorization to devastate a wetland.
The worm is in the apple, then.
But this is far from the only problem reported in the way Quebec currently protects wetlands.
Not only are we unable to spend the sums collected as compensation for their destruction, but some already believe that these sums – revised downwards a few years ago, as soon as the regime came into force – will be insufficient to replace lost wetlands.
Worse, last year, Quebec again lowered the amounts that must be paid by promoters in certain regions to compensate for the disappearance of the wetlands that they are wiping off the map.
Wait, it’s not over! When a wetland must be created or restored, there is no time limit for carrying out the work. It is an incoherent omission.
In addition, note that it is not easy to find places where it is possible to create new ones. Among other things because the Act respecting the protection of agricultural territory and activities often gets in the way. There is another structural problem to be solved here.
Wetlands are fundamental to the survival of our ecosystems. They “perform essential ecological and [ils] are a key link in Quebec’s biodiversity,” says the Quebec Ministry of the Environment.
A recent report by the Canada Research Chair in Ecological Economics at the Université du Québec en Outaouais used a picture worth a thousand words to explain that if forests are the lungs of our planet, wetlands are its kidneys. They filter water, but also serve as a natural habitat for many species and regulate the climate.
Quebec has officially set itself the objective of “no net loss” of wetlands. The intention is laudable, without a shadow of a doubt. But what is the use of this commitment if the government does not give itself the means to respect it? For now, it’s window dressing.
In December, Montreal will host the second part of the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP15). Quebec would do well, by then, to resolve this situation, which is as problematic as it is embarrassing.