Today is Earth Day, and we are taking this day to highlight the importance of wetlands and the Indigenous leaders who have stewarded this vital ecosystem for generations and continue to do so.

A wetland is an area of land that is either covered or saturated with water. The water is often groundwater seeping up from an aquifer, but it can also be from a river, lake, or seawater. Most scientists consider swamps, marshes, and bogs to be the three major kinds of wetlands.

Although some wetlands can form relatively quickly, others took thousands of years to develop.

Most of Canada’s wetlands occur in the Boreal Shield,  Hudson Plains, and Boreal Plains. Wetlands form almost 80% of the Hudson Plains. The area encompasses the Hudson Bay and James Bay Lowlands (wetlands).

The Hudson Bay Lowlands are peatlands. Peatlands are terrestrial wetland ecosystems in which waterlogged conditions prevent plant material from fully decomposing. Because of the slow rate of decay in the peatlands, the boggy Earth holds almost twice as much carbon as a forest does, which is disturbed, would push Canada past its emissions reductions targets with catastrophic climate impacts.

For the reason the Hudson Bay Lowlands are also known as the “Breathing Lands” to Indigenous communities in the region – a nod to the services it performs to cool the planet. In peatlands, year-round water-logged conditions slow plant decomposition to such an extent that dead plants accumulate to form peat. This stores the carbon the plants absorbed from the atmosphere within peat soils, providing a net-cooling effect and helping to mitigate the climate crisis.

Historically, settler governments have gained wealth from exploiting the resources from the land, which has had environmental, and economic impacts to First Nations residing in those areas. The Ontario government is still trying to fast-track rapid industrial development on the Hudson Bay lowlands, pushing for permits to mine, deforest, build roads, and dam rivers without the consent of Indigenous Nations. Resource extraction administered by Ontario and Canada have caused severe environmental degradation to lands that Treaty No. 9 Nations have stewarded since time immemorial. The repercussions of viewing the land as something that can be exploited has not only disrupted Indigenous legal orders and relationships with the land, it has led us to the deplorable climate crisis we are all experiencing, such as extreme wildfires, flooding, and species extinction. As time continues, the climate crisis will only get worse. 

We’re being told that we need the minerals in the peatlands to kick-start a renewable energy transition. But, if we destroy an ecology that sequesters billions of tons of carbon in order to do so, while polluting watersheds and trampling Indigenous rights, are we really making such a great leap forward?

While the relational values that have sustained ecosystems continue to exist, they are under direct threat. Centuries of oppression toward the laws of the land — put in place over thousands of years of stewardship — meant that successive colonial governments have run roughshod over Indigenous rights. At the same time, as we teeter on the edge of climate collapse, it’s those very same deeply rooted, time-tested ways of being in relationship with the land that offer us a way forward. 

This Earth Day, we’re inviting everyone to donate to support the coalition of Nations protecting the Breathing Lands. Their critical case aims for a new framework for decision making, in which Indigenous Peoples have co-jurisdiction over their lands: as the Treaties intended.