#5 Ecology & youth activism converge for wetland conservation with Andrea Kirkwood and Devin Mathura

In episode #5, we explore a local story from southern Ontario involving a proposed development of a wetland habitat in the town of Pickering, the fast tracking of development opportunities in Ontario and recent changes to the role of Conservation Authorities. At the time when this was all taking place, the story got a significant amount of media coverage, which was in large part due to the activism of local youth, such as Devin Mathura, one of our guests in this episode. But many scientists, including Dr. Andrea Kirkwood, who is our other guest today, were also quite vocal about what was happening and were eager to talk about the science of wetland ecosystems and their underappreciated value.

Andrea is an Associate Professor of Biological Science at Ontario Tech University where her research focuses on the ecology of aquatic ecosystems. She has published extensively on a range of topics including water quality of urban wetlands and the functional role of microbial diversity in aquatic systems. She is also actively involved in community-based environmental stewardship initiatives in southern Ontario.

Devin Mathura is an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo, where he is enrolled in environment, resources, and sustainability studies. As you’ll hear, he has been actively engaged in local environmental issues for a long time.

We talked about the dual roles of science and advocacy and the need for policy literacy to understand the role and reach of government in both development and conservation. It was great to hear from Devin, who is clearly a passionate emerging leader in sustainability issues, and from Andrea who is teaching and producing the science that can promote evidence-based decision-making for development activities in and around cities.

Andrea's website: https://kirkwoodlab.weebly.com/

Devin on Twitter: @DevinMathura

National Observer story about the recent use of Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZO) in Ontario: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/04/news/ford-government-changes-law-lawsuit-controversial-land-zoning-casino