CBC: What ‘enormous’ wetland loss is costing Manitoba
January 3, 2017 —
Manitoba loses, on average, 4½ football fields worth of wetlands every day — a trend scientists say is doomed to continue so long as the province fails to enact a meaningful conservation plan. But really, what have those slimy cesspools done for you lately anyway, besides belch legions of mosquitoes into existence?
“A lot of people still haven’t been convinced that wetlands are valuable,” says University of Manitoba ecologist Gordon Goldsborough, a specialist who studies how human activity impacts wetlands.
“There’s still a prevailing view among many people that the sooner they’re drained and made into productive farmland, for example, the better.