SUBMITTED ONLINE What is…

SUBMITTED ONLINE

What is your vision for invasive species prevention and management in the Province?

Ultimately, the Township believes that the Province should remain committed to working with other Federal and international agencies in reducing the spread, mitigating the impact and reducing the establishment of invasive species on the basis that prevention is significantly more successful and more cost effective that later management. The vision should be that invasive species introduction and establishment is reduced and that any new invasive species be addressed effective and promptly. Maintaining this vision, adjusting as the impacts of climate change will continue to influence and change the nature of ‘invasive’ species, is only successfully achieved with national and international coordination and collaboration.

What opportunities are there for future invasive species prevention and management?

The Township firmly believes that the best, most efficient, and cost-effective way of invasive species management is in the prevention of invasive species becoming established. As the Strategy has already influenced, diligent work on the detection and prevention of invasive species must be a priority within the plan. Much success has already been established in these areas and many tools have been put in place to help ensure the rapid detection and prevention of invasive species. This work must continue, and international collaborative efforts as well as national collaboration between various communities and agencies must remain priorities going forward.

One area of opportunity that the Township believes is of value exploring is increased forecasting for invasive species and climate change. As climate change continues to increasingly impact the environment, Ontario will see a change in species that can live and will migrate into Ontario. Some of these may be considered invasive today, but endemic tomorrow based on these environmental changes. Forecasting work in respect to these species, how to manage them, and the potential impact as we see ecological shifts in our environmental will be a key area of work over coming years; these ecological shifts will likely see existing species lost to regions of Ontario and managing our environment with an awareness of these shifts will be key.

There is significant opportunity for increased partnership and action on the ground for the management of existing invasive species. Currently, many municipalities focus is solely on Noxious Weeds under existing legislation, and, the resources required to manage Noxious Weeds are already under significant strain. For many, including the Township, there are simply no resources available for proactive, or indeed, reactive work on Invasive Species. This means that work on established, or establishing invasive species is highly limited, for example, restricted to the management of ash trees after EAB has caused their demise. Little is able to be achieved in respect to management work.

There is significant opportunity to address this through providing clarity and guidance on where municipalities efforts would be best directed – which species should municipalities focus on where the gains from management work would be best realized? How can existing networks (such as Conservation Authorities) who have roles on the ground best be maximized as delivery agencies working with municipalities on wider invasive species management goals?

Much of the existing strategy focusses on how the province can do this work and lead this work on their own lands; the strategy has an opportunity to influence a far large land based if it is developed to provide direction to a wider range of partners on how best to implement management measures and which species have the greatest impact for management activities to be directed to.

Do you think there are barriers related to invasive species prevention and management in Ontario? How could these barriers be addressed.

One of the most significant barriers to action is resources. While the Township acknowledges the future significant social, environmental and financial cost of invasive species presence in the environment, their remains a significant lack of resources available immediately for the proactive management of invasive species to eliminate these future costs. The Township recognizes that investment made now will reduce costs later, but the reality is that addressing invasive species is not a core mandate of local government and one for which funding is not available, given the increasing role of local government in a number of areas, as well as the requirements to maintain critical local infrastructure and maintain local services for communities.

The Township believes that, from a municipal perspective at least, sustained resources targeted and directed at invasive species remains a key barrier to effective management of these.

The second barrier that the plan needs to address is the impact of climate change on invasive species arrival and establishment and changes to species considered invasive over coming decades. Climate change is a present and increasingly impactful pressure on our environment and this needs to addressed in a revised Invasive species strategy.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment and the Township remains open to additional involvement in the development of the strategy as the Province sees fit.