Environment committee  It's probably important to note that Canada does not have a comprehensive wetland inventory.

Environment committee  There is no way to really assess how many wetlands we have or may have lost. Unlike the United States, which does have a comprehensive wetland inventory that is repeated through time, they know how many wetlands they currently have and how many they've lost; Canada does not have

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  In my mind, first and foremost, it is having a wetland inventory. I'll go back to that, because until you know the numbers and types of wetlands that you have on a landscape, it's very difficult to build models or to be able to predict what the impacts may be of removing any of t

Environment committee  There are usually two groups of people who will be buying the land. It will be either ranchers, cattle producers who want to use the land for grazing their cows or for hay land, or on the other side of things, depending upon where the property is, it can be a conservation buyer,

Environment committee  Yes, educating the public about the value of wetlands is a big part of what we do. I think we're starting to see some of that across the Prairies with the recent flood events we've had. We're starting to hear more talk about retaining the wetlands we have, with farmers doing it o

Environment committee  It doesn't take that much time, actually. If we put a ditch plug in during the fall, typically by the next summer, if the water returns, we'll start to see some of the aquatic vegetation coming back. Two to three years down the road, you'd be hard-pressed to know by looking at it

Environment committee  Right.

Environment committee  It varies regionally. In Atlantic Canada, a lot of landowners just want to have a wetland in their backyard. They want to have a pond, a pair of geese, and they want to use that pond for skating in the winter. When you move into the Prairies, however, you're thinking about annual

Environment committee  I'll try to. I don't know a whole lot about it. It's actually something that we are just investigating now. It's part of a research project that we're doing with one of the forest companies, where they're using cordwood to build the roads. It allows the water to flow through thos

Environment committee  I don't know specifically, but given that most of this is associated with forestry, where they're going in for a relatively short period of time to remove the trees, that may be one of the reasons why they're using the logs. I don't know how long they actually last.

Environment committee  It depends on the type of wetland, but some wetlands certainly are fairly easy to restore. If I'm talking about prairie potholes, as I showed you in some of the slides, simply putting in an earthen ditch plug is a means of restoring those wetlands. You don't have to go in and re-

Environment committee  First, thank you for inviting us back to talk more specifically about wetland conservation. Over the course of this presentation I want to give you a little about wetland basics: the kinds of wetlands we have in Canada; what some of the benefits are of wetlands; a brief overview

Environment committee  I'll reiterate what Andrea is saying. The North American waterfowl management plan is a great example. As for Quebec, it is part of the eastern habitat joint venture. It brings together the partners within the province of Quebec to develop a conservation plan just for Quebec. W

Environment committee  Well, it's always very tricky to discuss what a landscape is, because I don't think there is any one definitive answer. In my mind, a landscape is an expansive area that tends to provide habitat for a number of species. It could be a township. It could be many townships together.