Municipal Councils are liable for the impacts of any decisions that are made. Meanwhile, nature and wildlife are interconnected, and wetlands, where most have taken thousands of years to develop, are dynamic and support 70% of fish and wildlife including generations to come. Ontario, south of Algonquin Park and the Canadian Shield has already lost over 80% of wetlands, affecting wildlife and ecosystem services. The final strongholds of wetlands and wildlife remain across The Land Between, and these assets support water and wildlife based ecosystem services in a majority of southern Ontario.

Therefore, any development of remaining will have cascading effects that often cannot be measured. Also, few tools exist to help inform municipal decisions, and while ignorance or a lack of capacity does not serve as a viable excuse to alleviate the burden of liability for counsellors, we can provide more information and identify processes in order to mitigate detrimental impacts of decisions and ensure our communities achieve a balance and sustain nature's inherent capacity to support our health and wellbeing.   

DISCLAIMER: While the Working Watersheds program provides guidance, the information based on many assumptions taken from science and remote sensing, therefore, all information should be field-tested and field-truthed before any decisions are made, as we do not accept any liability related to the data or information provided, or for decisions made by responsibility authorities using this data.