WC134 JanFeb 2024 - Magazine - Page 36
H2OPINION
Is Saskatchewan
Going Down the Drain?
A water management crisis in the making
BY TREVOR HERRIOT
C
ANADA IS LOSING approximately 80 acres of wetlands
every 24 hours.1 The prairie pothole region of Saskatchewan is experiencing more than its share of that loss, with
some areas having seen more than 90 per cent of their wetlands disappear since settlement.
Agriculture is the dominant land use on the prairies, but
before the land was surveyed for agricultural homesteading, an
abundance of natural wetlands were an integral part of the prairie
grassland and parkland ecosystems. Those ecosystems were decimated as farmers drained their land through the twentieth century,
ignoring government regulation and using relatively small machinery. Many wetlands were lost, but farmers working in the prairie
pothole region typically left the most persistent wet areas on their
cropland. In recent decades, however, larger machinery and new
drainage methods, along with soaring commodity and land prices,
have given farmers means and justification to drain any wetlands
that were formerly considered unfarmable.
To be fair, there are many farmers in the province who resist
the temptation to drain and retain wetlands and other habitat on
their farms. However, in certain regions there are influential and
organized farmers, often managing thousands of acres of land,
who lobby the government to relax drainage regulations and who
continue to drain their wetlands.
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WATER C AN ADA • JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2024
Getty Imagtes
Trevor Herriot
Trevor Herriot is a Saskatchewanbased writer, naturalist, and
conservationist.
The cost of draining
Drainage today is a case of short-term private benefits prevailing
over the long-term public interest in having healthy landscapes,
communities and watersheds. There is growing realization that agricultural lands produce more than food. When managed sustainably, agricultural lands also provide a number of other ecological
goods and services, such as clean water, carbon sequestration, flood
and drought protection, and wildlife habitat.2 Wetlands and their
surrounding uplands are habitat for approximately 600 species of
plants, animals, and insects (including crop pollinators) in Canada. They are the home for at least some portion of the year for
many fish, birds, and other animals, meeting essential breeding,
nesting, nursery, and feeding needs. Many of the species, including
the millions of game birds and fish reared in and around wetlands
support a growing recreation and tourist industry.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
