Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
And yet these same grasslands support so much life. They help feed us, by nurturing pollinators and grazing mammals. They quench our thirst, filtering our communities’ drinking water with their roots. And they protect us, storing vast amounts of carbon and retaining water during spring melts and summer droughts. Our well-being is intimately tied to the health of the natural world around us. And we’re at a point now where nature’s health is ailing.
Peat is partially decayed vegetation that accumulates in the cold, water-logged, oxygen-starved bogs and fens of the boreal. As temperatures warm, the peat dries out in the south and thaws in the North, where trees are drowning and rivers and lakes are browning with solid organic carbon that is dissolving in the water. This is leading to the release of massive amounts of carbon into rivers and lakes and the atmosphere. Given that peatlands store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests, climate scientists are closely watching these changes. In addition to mitigating floods, filtering water, and slowing or stopping wildfire, the peat-heavy boreal ecosystem provides nesting sites for one billion to three billion birds that journey north from as far away as Argentina.
