Today marks two calendar milestones — World Wetlands Day and Groundhog Day.
Of course, for New Brunswickers who have been waiting eagerly for a comprehensive wetlands strategy these past six years, one of these milestones is more fitting of our province than the other.
Consider the following timeline breaking down the saga of wetlands management in New Brunswick, and we think you’ll agree: It feels an awful lot more like Groundhog Day (Bill Murray-style) than Wetlands Day.
2010 and earlier: We were expecting guidelines and regulations to accompany the provinces’ high level Wetland Conservation Policy to be released soon. The Department of Environment staff had been working on its development for years and a final product was expected any time for public comment.
2011: The government of the day released the “wetlands predictive map” predicting areas that may contain wetlands based on depth to the water table, which led to public confusion about what type of development could happen and where. The map was not accompanied by explanations or a user guide, leading to widespread misunderstanding about how it would be used. The Minister of Environment at the time hosted a “Wetland Listening Tour” at which CCNB testified to the misrepresentations of the map and outlined what we thought wetland conservation guidelines and regulations should look like.
2012: The government announced a “short term” wetland management strategy to deal with the backlash over the predictive map, including a new map that department staff were directed to use to identify wetlands for Environmental Impact Assessments and permitting approvals. We calculated that this regulatory map contained only about half of the wetlands that actually existed in New Brunswick. This strategy was very disappointing and read like a “how to develop wetlands manual.” A stakeholder participation process for a “long-term” wetlands management Strategy was formed. CCNB agreed to participate.
2013: The multi-stakeholder group — with membership from environmental and conservation groups, industries, municipalities, real-estate associations and more — continued workshops, hosted by the Department of Environment, to discuss, debate and make recommendations about wetland definitions, mapping accuracy, compensation requirements, protection, etc.
2014: The multi-stakeholder group concluded their work together and the Department of Environment worked on piecing the recommendations together.
2015: Department of Environment staff hosted a briefing for the multi-stakeholder working group participants to outline the final “long term wetland management strategy” guidelines/regulations that would be recommended to the current Minister. Indications were that the guidelines/regulations would be announced late in the year 2015. CCNB sent a letter to the current Minister of Environment asking that they move quickly to enact the recommended guidelines/regulations put forward by the department staff.
2016: The guidelines/regulations have still not been enacted and the Province is still operating under the “short-term” wetland management strategy, meaning wetlands are still being developed using the regulatory map that only triggers government permitting and oversight on 50 per cent of wetlands that exist on the landscape.
See what we mean?