Watershed protection guide   (Page 1 of 3)

Take action to protect the watershed near your home with these steps

By Anne Casselman

Photo: Sheena Golden

Think Canada, and you think water. More than two million lakes and one-fifth of the world’s fresh water lie within our borders — our pockmarked landscape was practically purpose built by retreating glaciers to pool water. Now forget all that. The number you need to remember is 6.5 percent. That’s the amount of the world’s renewable fresh water we have at our disposal (not an awful lot, considering our land mass). The supply is only 2.6 percent in southern Canada. Use more, and we risk gnawing away at our water capital — draining our aquifers and lakes rather than living sustainably and using the water that precipitation replenishes each year. So Canada’s water wealth? A myth. That’s why it’s critical for us to safeguard our waterways, to ensure they’re managed well. In the face of climate change, a global water crisis, rising energy demands and urbanization, our water resources don’t just become more valuable. They desperately need our help.

1. GET YOUR HANDS WET — AND DIRTY

“I was walking down the creek and counting the dead,” recounts Paul Cipywnyk, president of the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers Society in Burnaby, B.C. “You saw these beautiful little fish alive days before, and then they’re all gone.” A fish kill in March 2010 decimated the coho salmon smolts and fry in Byrne Creek, one of Burnaby’s half dozen remaining salmon-bearing streams. The culprit: someone had washed a pollutant down a storm drain. “We like to joke with locals and say, ‘Hey, you guys all live on waterfront property,’ because the streets drain into the creek,” says Cipywnyk. Levity aside, the best way for people to connect the dots is to get off the couch and into the creek bed. “You have to get outdoors,” he says, “to understand how your watershed works.”

Cipywnyk, a self-described “accidental environmentalist,” is a testament to the charisma of nature. When he and his wife moved into their Burnaby townhouse 10 years ago, they had no idea that a creek even ran 25 metres beyond their back door. “We saw our first spawning salmon that fall and were absolutely enthralled,” he says. Cipywnyk joined the Streamkeepers that year. “There’s this sense of camaraderie that develops out of sweat equity. When you pull together on something, your vested interest increases dramatically. It becomes our creek, my creek.”

“When you are out there overturning logs and pulling garbage out of streams, you really see what’s going on,” says John Werring, an aquatic biologist with the David Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver. Of the Fraser Valley’s 779 creeks and streams, 117 have been lost altogether and many of the rest suffer habitat degradation and pollution. It’s a tale of loss echoed across the country. “We need more people out there,” says Werring. “That’s absolutely critical.”

2. HELLO, CLASS: I’LL BE YOUR WATERSHED THIS TERM

On the shore of a beaver pond that feeds a tributary of New Brunswick’s Saint John River lies a watertight ammunitions box containing a pamphlet about the watershed written by students, along with three rubber whales and some fish stickers. It’s one of four geocaches stashed by the Outdoor Pursuits class of Saint John High School as part of Environment Canada’s nationwide Geocache Your Watershed project.

“There are so few opportunities for children and young people to get outdoors,” says Bill Mahaffy, who teaches the class. “It just makes things more real to them.” One of his class’s geocaches is near an osprey nest. From another, his students can catch a glimpse of a beaver, if they’re quiet. Mahaffy has found that getting students outside is a shortcut to fostering their conservation values. “If it’s part of your life’s experience, you take it into your heart and say this is important.”