After neighbouring agricultural emergencies due to drought, we now are dealing with massive flooding, not just in La Broquerie. Our Provencher communities need coordinated federal and provincial support for our municipalities as we struggle to design balanced drainage with planned water retention and wetland management in times of extreme weather events.
Forests, especially marsh forests hold so much water that they’re a defence not only against flooding but against the increasing threat of wildfires during dry periods. And they’re crucial to the health of watersheds and surrounding ecosystems like our beautiful Provencher lake and river country.
Trees absorb huge amounts of carbon over their lifetimes. But all that goes back into the atmosphere when we cut them down and burn them, or when we let them die and decompose. We need to plant billions of new trees and preserve all forests as crucial carbon sinks.
Green Party policy will renew the abandoned National Forest Strategy and focus on creating ecologically sound and climate-resilient forests and peatlands. Our strategy will create thousands of jobs and our workers’ transition plan will help displaced forestry and peat workers find new jobs in renewable forestry and other sectors. It will put people to work creating fire breaks around remote communities and invest in more water bombers to combat fires. Greens will restore forests to health, to contribute in the fight against the climate crisis, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples.
The climate emergency needs us to start a massive tree planting effort and protect forests, including marsh forests from clear cutting, fires and logging. The Greens propose planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year until 2050. Until such policies for carbon sequestration are in place, I respectfully ask my neighbours to consider planting more trees than they are cutting, preserving marsh forest and demanding tax relief on marshland as valuable water retention areas, instead of making more drainage plans.
Janine Gibson,
Green Party Candidate, Provencher
Pansy/Sarto Manitoba