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Don’t drain the swamp

Draining swamps has always been a bad idea, we just didn’t know how bad
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During the U.S. election campaign, one of Donald Trump’s favourite hashtags on twitter was #draintheswamp, implying he would clean out all the corruption in Washington, D.C.

Unlikely as it may be that Trump would be the person to accomplish such a feat, someone should have told him draining wetlands is a bad idea, for a number of reasons.

Wetlands help to filter water, recharge groundwater storage, and encourage a rich level of plant and animal life, among a range of vital ecological functions.

Yet, we’ve managed to destroy an amazing amount of this diverse habitats, paving them over, cutting off their water sources or filling them in for agricultural land.

When Trump rages about “draining the swamp,” he probably doesn’t realize that job was completed in Washington, DC a long time ago. Before the U.S. capital was built there, much of the district was a wetland supporting a rich biodiversity of plants and wildlife. Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for the district centred on three high and dry knolls overlooking the Potomac estuary and wetlands.

It’s mostly under concrete now and in the Okanagan, the situation is as bad or worse.

In the 150 years since European settlers joined the First Peoples in the valley, we managed to eliminate 85 per cent of wetland habitat: draining it, forcing the Okanagan River into a channel and filling it in.

That’s what makes the work of groups like the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ducks Unlimited and local naturalist and environmental groups so important.

The addition of 90 acres of the Osoyoos Oxbows to the land they already hold in the Road 22 area is a positive step to preserving what is left of our wetlands, and needs to be supported at all levels, from individuals through to all levels of government, local to federal. Wetlands can be resilient, but if we continue this process of building our homes and cities over them, it won’t be very long before there are none left and the world is a much poorer place, losing all the ecological benefits they provide, beautiful spaces and a wealth of species.