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Wild rice for wildlife: DUC helps plant the seeds of sustainability 
Oak Hammock Marsh, Man., December 17, 2009 — In 2009 Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) teamed up with the staff at South Nation Conservation (SNC) and Plenty Canada to complete a wild rice planting project on 27 properties throughout the 4,000-square-kilometre watershed. DUC contributed funding through the Ontario Wetland Care land stewardship program, a partnership between the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Ducks Unlimited Canada. Plenty Canada provided expertise and 100 pounds of wild rice, and worked with conservation authority staff and community volunteers to implement the project.
The project requires a significant amount of manual labour: ripe seeds from native plants in local wetlands are dislodged into a canoe, soaked in buckets and then hand-spread in other suitable locations to enhance wetland habitat.
A traditionally important food source for First Nations, wild rice also helps to sustain migratory waterfowl, and the fields provide improved habitat for many other species of wildlife and fish. The wild rice fields also improve water quality and help to control the spread of non-native plant species. Wild rice grasses are highly affected by increased water flow and water level fluctuations and require slow-moving water to thrive. Damming and shoreline development have significantly contributed to the loss of this aquatic annual grass.
Chris Craig is a senior forest technician with South Nation Conservation Authority and a member of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagin. He feels powerfully about our responsibility as caretakers of the landscape and offers this poetic yet practical sentiment:
“We are one of the smallest pieces in the web of life, but are the largest destructive force to this fragile world we live in. If the air is polluted will we suffer, or if the water is contaminated will we suffer, or if the animals or plants were to disappear would we suffer? These are the questions me must ask ourselves every day and we as the people of this world must answer truthfully yes. Now let’s ask one more question: if we the people were to all disappear today would anything else that the Creator has made suffer? No. Mother Earth would heal and the waters and air would clean themselves and the plants and animals would all come back and live in harmony with all things.”
For more information, contact:
Duncan Morrison, d_morrison@ducks.ca
National Marketing and Communications
Ducks Unlimited Canada
Tel: 204-467-3202
