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Habitat and Species: Final Comments


Habitat and Species

Introduction
 
The loss and degradation of habitat throughout the Great Lakes poses a serious threat to water quality. Vital ecosystem services such as filtration, silt trapping, flood water storage and oxygen enrichment must be preserved and restored to not only support the human and wildlife populations and provide for livable communities, but also to enrich the landscape and character that makes the region attractive to tourists.
 
Recommendations:
  • The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement should contain a major goal of protecting and restoring habitat that enhances water quality. An annex on habitat, species and biological integrity, including wetlands protection, conservation, and resilience, should be added to the Agreement.
  • The fundamental principle in the habitat annex should be protection.
  •  The annex should commit the International Joint Commission or another independent binational institution to advise on the means for achieving the annex’s goal. The annex should call for the IJC or the other binational body to facilitate the development of goals and programs for habitat protection and restoration, including:
     
    1. Assessing the actual and potential water quality benefits of protecting and/or restoring specific shoreline and riparian areas;
    2. Identifying goals and objectives for protecting and restoring such places so that they can serve to protect water quality;
    3. Evaluating the capacity of federal programs and existing authorities to achieve the goals and objectives, and;
    4. Recommending to the Parties means of using or strengthening existing programs, and creating new ones as needed, to achieve these goals and objectives, with full awareness of the multi-jurisdictional cooperation needed as well as a timeline for completion and specific objectives related to area per given year that is protected and restored.
    5. Developing a process (or utilizing an existing process) to prioritize habitats in both countries for protection and restoration focus.
  • The annex should call for the development by the Parties of an overarching biological integrity plan for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River with principles & specific objectives 
      
  • The choice of wetlands to be restored should be based on their contribution to improving water quality. The IJC or another binational body should recommend minimum targets for wetlands restoration in each country and in each subarea within the basin. In the U.S. at a minimum this should mean adopting the Great Lakes regional Collaboration Strategy goal of 550,000 acres of wetlands restored or protected over the next 15 years. 
  • The annex should call for periodic region-wide condition assessments of wetlands and other significant nearshore habitat. 
  • As part of the prioritization process noted above, wetlands identified as “Outstanding National Resource Waters ” under the U.S. Clean Water Act and Canadian equivalent and headwater habitats should be protected and restored.  Identify the “most precious” return for funding.
  • The Agreement should require a prohibition on open-lake disposal that degrades water quality and degrades or alters habitat.
The Agreement should address the following:
 
  • The need for informational/mapping and analytic tools for management of biodiversity
     
  • The need for a “Pristine Habitat/Biodiversity Area of Concern” designation as an incentive for habitat protection and restoration
     
  • The potential of International Resource Water designations to help protect more pristine areas (including from new discharges)
     
  •  Defining species preferences, to drive management funding
     
  • Potential habitat restoration practices (e.g., priority wetland restoration, offshore reef rehabilitation) that can promote restoration of native species, including lake trout, lake sturgeon, and other species.
     
  •  Affirming that any commercial or public development of bottomlands should be done in a way that does not impair the physical, chemical or biological integrity of lake habitat
     
  • The impacts of electric transmission lines, including electromagnetic impacts, on habitat
     
  • Threats of logging operations to water quality in the Great Lakes Basin.
  • Effects of climate change on habitat.
     
  • Increased monitoring of populations of aquatic life and wildlife dependant on the Great Lakes, including for recreationally important fish species as well as mammals and birds, and also including citizen monitoring contributions.
  • Potential impacts of mining (in particular metal mining) on Great Lakes tributaries and broader water quality.

 

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