Derek Kaye
Castlegar News
The weather did not put a damper on attendance or smiles at Castlegar’s Earth Day celebration.
The event was held in Kinsmen Park on April 22 and was part of Earth Day celebrations all over the world.
Citizens’ Climate Lobby is part of a worldwide initiative to bring awareness and political pressure upon governments to act towards mitigating climate change.
A family-style barbecue with free food was fairly popular and was entertained by some members from the drum group Wakun.
Slocan River Streamkeepers had an interactive demonstration showing the difference in water flow through a river surrounded with development versus a river surrounded by wetland and wild land. Streamkeepers receives funding in wetlands and river ecosystem restoration. As well they are intensely monitoring the residual effects from last year’s fuel spill in Lemon Creek.
One of their newest initiatives is S.W.A.M.P., which stands for Slocan Valley Wetlands Assessment and Mapping Program.
There are 189 wetland areas in the Slocan Valley watershed and as SWAMP coordinator Jennifer Yeow described, “most of them have never been identified, have never been mapped, never been assessed to see how important they are. They are areas that hold water and streams and are very important.”
With the help of funding and the contributions of experts theses areas are being mapped and assessed. They are monitoring changes for the bad or good with development, road building and logging being conducted in the wetlands watersheds. They are also setting a template for other communities to assess their wetland areas.