Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework - 2030 Targets

I am disappointed to see that you do not start by acknowledging that Hamilton is situated on "The traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. This land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, which was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. We further acknowledge that this land is covered by the Between the Lakes Purchase, 1792, between the Crown and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. " For centuries before the first colonist set foot on Turtle Island these lands were looked after mainly by women and traditional knowledge keepers . They remain the driving force behind biodiversity on Six Nations land and in Hamilton through Niwasa Kendaaswin Teg and similar community organisations.

The phenomenon of on-line ordering has led to a proliferation of over-consuming because it is so easy to do - anytime, anywhere. People may order 3 or 4 garments of one style, for example, and then return the ones that do not satisfy. The public should be made aware that the returned items do not go back into inventory - they are thrown into landfill. This is exorbitant waste. Perhaps education would reduce the amount of waste? Also, the big warehouse giants, e.g. Amazon, Ikea, Wayside, should be compelled to reduce waste, to build responsibly using green standards and to develop a different return policy which recognizes and addresses the problems created by their business practices and building standards.

Encourage the Federal government to become more fully committed to Biodiversity, insisting that they act immediately to protect 'at risk' species and the environment. These responsibilities are shared jointly by the federal and provincial governments but to date, the federal government has merely threatened to become involved. They need to act urgently before more species are lost and can never be recovered.

Wherever agricultural lands are threatened or poised for development, the Advisory Team should be in attendance at the Planning/Permitting level to highlight the problems of subdivisions, warehouses, etc. on farmland. We know that in Ontario, we are losing 319 acres of farmland every day. In Hamilton, this farmland is adjacent to the City and makes shipment and marketing of produce quick and easy and cheaper since products are not trucked in from other areas. Every time an acre of farmland is threatened or removed, this action affects our food security and needs to be addressed by the BAP. E.g. what alternative food sources can be found to replace what has been paved over? What alternative methods do Hamiltonians have to feed the growing numbers in the population? For every acre that is eliminated, can the BAP team find a similar food source to replace it? IF the answer is NO, that acre should remain in place. Note: we all know that our previous food import countries are suffering, e.g. US, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, so we cannot look to these food producers to bail us out. We have to be self-sufficient in developing our own food sources when farmland is destroyed.

From this target, one assumes that Indigenous advisors will be present at each planning/permitting session where wild animals/fish/flora/fauna are threatened. This would be optimal, if experts on sustainability could attend each meeting where wildlife (and vegetation) is negatively affected and make their comments based on their life experiences. If the Indigenous Advisor is present, his/her comments must be respected and have a veto power. There is no value in having this kind of expertise available and then ignoring their counsel. Wherever a wetland, woodland, thicket, etc. is present, the attendance of Indigenous Advisors should be mandatory and their advice should be heeded.

Is it possible to engage Golf Courses in this BAP to the extent that they do not use pesticides on grounds and fairways. Golf courses are often adjacent to residential neighbourhoods and we know that pesticides are not good for anyone or anything. Golf Courses should no longer be exempt from the prohibited use of pesticides.
While we are talking about Golf Courses, could they also be part of the BAP where they do not irrigate the greens, etc., but use grasses that are more drought resistant? As we learn to conserve water, these facilities need to become part of the solution too. This will require a whole new thought process among golfers and management teams, but everyone must participate if the Plan is to be successful.

Create a list of the Top 10 Most Invasive Species that should be eradicated in our immediate area. I realize there are many, but it would be helpful to start with a manageable list. Publish this list widely in Nature magazines, through Nature groups, and social media. Also, start to police the introduction of these alien species, many of which are still sold at nurseries. They need to be banned where they start. Most consumers believe that if a reputable nursery sells a product, then it must be OK. We know this is not the truth. Penalize nurseries who continue to sell invasive species on your Top Ten List.
Organize volunteer groups to go out to targeted areas to destroy swaths of these plants en masse. Teach the groups the correct way to eradicate the plant and then dispose of it properly so it cannot spread again. The Grand River Conservation Authority has been doing this with Hogweed and they have been very successful, but they organize and educate and consequently, citizens realize the extent of the problem. It is not always readily apparent. As you have commented, education is a key factor.

Absolutely agree that the preservation of our 'at risk' and endangered species is of the utmost priority and urgency. Every day that we do nothing, more species are lost forever.
Do you have a starting list of where known 'at risk' species are threatened? Can you start there to protect them with tunnels under roadways or bridges over them to provide a safe corridor for all creatures to cross our roads and railways and avoid destruction? Turtles are particularly vulnerable, especially on Cootes Drive between Dundas and McMaster University. Hwy. 6 South is also a death trap. As these roadways are widened, can you please provide advice on safe ways for all animals to traverse these corridors and move from one safe space to another. Note: culverts under roadways are not the answer. They flood and smaller animals, especially turtles, get trapped. Likewise, they are not useful for larger animals such as deer.
We know that the pollinators and butterflies, particularly the Monarch, are at risk. They also need safe corridors, especially the migrating Monarchs. Would it be possible to begin immediately to plant wildflower meadows and milkweed plants along major thoroughfares, e.g. the Link, to establish a natural environment for pollinators and enable their safe passage. The US has done this to a great level of success, and it has been inexpensive. Additionally, it means that the verges are no longer mowed, thereby cutting down on fossil fuel emissions from mowers and blowers and eliminating man hours. Let Nature take over these vast acreages, if that's a feasible scheme.
Just trying to think of quick and inexpensive ways to start saving biodiversity without waiting for massive consultations.

How are you going to ensure that areas of particular importance for biodiversity are effectively conserved and managed? What is the standard?
Who sets it? Who decides the areas of particular importance? What does effectively conserved actually mean?
How can this be achieved when the experts from Conservation Authorities are no longer available for consultation as a result of Premier Ford's ongoing rape of the province? How can these areas be managed when they are likely slated for development and new housing? You will have to stop the provincial government before you can achieve this goal.
With the rapidly advancing climate crisis, biodiversity is under continued attack, as is the human population. Cliche comment: the sooner you can restore these ravaged areas, the sooner we can start to mitigate the damage from climate change.

In order to achieve this target, decide on the 5 or 6 worst degraded areas, either terrestrial or inland water (and Hamilton has many!) and set to work on those 5 or 6. Which ones will deliver the biggest benefit or save the most species? Get buy-in from all your partners.
Arrange the funding. Determine the restoration plan. Do you have to acquire land? Who is in charge? These are huge targets that could take years to achieve, and you have only 7. Once the formal BAP is approved, all this back-end planning should already be done, so you can hit the ground hard and fast. I know you are all aware of the species which die every day; the urgency is beyond words. Please be ready to go, as soon as possible.

The most important part of this plan is to set up the infrastructure, that is a Coordinator with designated teams, city partners, and specialists (e.g. ecologists) who can make decisions together, carry out those decisions, fund them, monitor them, and see them to fruition. It will take intersection with the Climate Change Office, with every Planning Committee meeting and the affected indigenous experts.
This is an amazing, wonderful project on which you are embarking but to be successful, the BAP Team will need power and clout so that you are heard at every meeting. A representative must attend every discussion about forward planning to ensure that all targets will be included in every plan. Start out tough and carry on in the same way. You cannot give in or all will be lost.

This will require avoiding the use of false information which is rampant online today. And only properly peer-reviewed research should be accepted as useful knowledge. Knowledge from people who live, volunteer and/or work in our local environments regularly can also be extremely valuable. For example, Hamilton has a large and highly knowledgeable birding community that collects a lot of excellent data about bird populations for researchers to use. Rely on our good local knowledge base by working with organizations like the Hamilton Naturalists' Club and RBG.

Identifying DNA from air samples sounds like it may be useful in the near future for measuring biodiversity in our natural areas. It may identify rare species that we are currently unaware of in some of our local habitats.

Years ago, the European Union put out a list of great recommendations to help reduce waste and make life better for consumers and our planet's sustainability. I don't recall all the ideas but some were: standardize products like batteries for different products; make all products easier to reuse, repair and recycle; discover better materials to make clothing from that are recyclable and compostable; make good quality products that last so we don't have to replace them as often (so use steel instead of plastic, etc.); reflect the environmental cost of making any product in its price, and use part of that income to repair damage done during the manufacturing of the product; etc. These are all excellent ideas.

(I would like to see the standardization of charging for all electric vehicles as well as a lot more easy-to-find-and-use charging stations, including at multi-unit buildings like condos, apartments and office buildings. We shouldn't be building any more out-dated 'gas stations.' Even more importantly, we need to find new ways of transporting a higher number of people more quickly, throughout the city = better high speed mass transit.)

Chemical contamination of Lake Ontario from industries is a serious problem. Polluting industries should be inspected regularly by city officials and made to pay for necessary clean ups, which should be done immediately. This includes agriculture and the overuse of pesticides/herbicides and fertilizers which can wash or leach into our waterways and groundwater table. We should prioritize green sustainable industries and help all existing industries to 'go green' as much, and as fast as possible (all municipal services too, of course, with bids going to greener companies rather than the least expensive one).

I would like to see complete ingredient labels on all food products and know how safe and sustainable packaging is as well. I would like to see more supply chain information on clothing, household items, office supplies, etc. so I can make the healthiest consumer choices to benefit our society.

The first question to ask when we are taking action on anything in our city is, "How will this effect our climate goals?", because reducing GHG emissions needs to be priority number one if we are to preserve the biodiversity of our ecosystems.

An excellent opportunity for improving biodiversity in urban areas is to plant native vegetation (pollinator gardens, rain gardens, shrubs to feed migratory birds or small native trees in all the city pathways. Train city staff to recognize weeds vs native plants and teach them how to maintain naturalized gardens without causing damage to them on city right-of-ways.
I have tried to maintain a native pollinator patch in the pathway beside my home but city crews are my biggest adversary in this effort. It has whipper-snipped, plowed up and dug up repeatedly. I can't keep up with the damage and am ready to give up on it -- however this is the kind of gardening project that the city should be embracing to tackle the climate emergency. Many of these pathways are sources of invasive plant species in urban areas too - as well as weedy school yards.

As the city has contracted Bell Canada to install services in our neighbourhood, part of their installation includes putting fairly large plastic electrical boxes on properties where residents don't need a connection to their house. Why aren't these electrical boxes being made from Hamilton steel like they used to be? I don't want this plastic pollution imposed on me for a service I will never need -- and yet I'm being forced to accept it by the city and Bell. This plastic box is being placed at the end of our driveway where it is certain to be damaged eventually by a vehicle as many people backup into our driveway to turn around, and delivery trucks demolished a concrete post at the end of my neighbour's driveway twice already. Then the shattered plastic bits will be washed down the sewer grate in one of our intense rain storms to pollute our lake. This plastic Bell box is going to be a target for graffiti, an eye sore for the neighbourhood and it's completely unnecessary at our house. How many other residents are being forced to have a plastic box on their property right-of-way? Likely hundreds, and all these small plastic pollution problems add up. Please avoid approving these toxic plastic pollution problems - same as the needless plastic giant digital signs that taxpayers paid for at every school in the city for over 2 million dollars. The school board could help a lot more with the climate emergency and plastic pollution.
Again, if doing the right thing is more expensive, I'd rather see us do what we can afford of the right thing, instead of harming ourselves with a lot more of the wrong thing. We shouldn't use toxic plastic because it's less expensive. We should eliminate toxic plastic whenever we can and switch back to recyclable and reusable materials - like metal electrical boxes which always worked fine in the past.

We shouldn't be wasting water on plastic hanging baskets of non-native flowers along our streets today either. I'd rather see my tax dollars used to remove some pavement and plant one nice native tree if that's what it costs. We need to think deeply about all of our actions today. Recyclable/reusable steel instead of plastic -- native trees instead of plastic hanging baskets to 'beautify' Upper James St. -- we need shade more than colour in the heat, please.

Yes, as an example, the province's 'bag limit' for Double-crested Cormorants is too high. This is a native species in Hamilton and some people don't like them because they think they're ugly and harm trees when roosting and in their breeding colonies. We forget that humans remove a lot more trees than any other species, and we're not the most attractive species either! We need to respect all native species and stop judging them so harshly by appearance only. What's important is their connection in the natural web of life which cormorants and humans both belong in here. Education is important and by the way, we really need to work on planting native species on the huge expanses of non-native lawn at many of our Hamilton schools. Some British schools raise farm animals as part of their curriculum while too many of our students are scared of wildlife today. Most school yards are too sterile to teach children about native species outdoors and they don't go on as many field trips as they used to. It should be mandatory that all elementary classes visit local natural lands around Hamilton to learn about ecology and biodiversity, and we should strengthen those topics in the curriculum. Every student should be able to list at least 10 native species before they graduate from middle school but most can't.

Feral cats and pet cats that are allowed to roam need to be addressed somehow in Hamilton. We live close to the escarpment and currently have four roaming cats who visit our yard and eat native birds, monarch butterflies and other wildlife that live in or visit our naturalized yard. We often have to remove our bird feeders completely. Biodiversity in the natural escarpment lands near us must also be negatively effected. I'm a cat lover myself, but roaming cats eat as many, if not more native breeding birds and migrating birds as window collisions dispose of. When I call the city resources, they say I have to catch the cat myself but I can't because we have other native wildlife in our yard that will enter any trap we set. I would like to see city employees equipped with and trained to use tranquilizer guns to remove this problem in a humane way from our neighbourhoods. Cats are also safer indoors, it's cruel to leave them out especially in dangerous urban areas and extreme temperatures. So, any cats that are removed from our streets should be given to new owners who have been educated fully about the harm that outdoor domestic cats cause. In my experience, cat owners in my neighbourhood who let their pets roam outside think it's good for the cat and don't care at all about native wildlife. They refuse to be educated about the harm their cats do. We need to keep cats indoors - they eat a wide variety of native species and often maim them just for fun. Better suggestions?

I have two suggestions to improve aquatic conservation. The first is creating more effective 'buffer zones' adjacent to waterways of all types in Hamilton. When I was part of the city's environmental assessment mediation group in the 1990s, buffers along waterways were always too narrow to protect creeks and streams from parking lot runoff and human disturbance. Developers were constantly pressuring the city to allow narrower buffers and they did often. I quit that committee in protest, and others followed. When I consulted for the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority, we saw residents who'd created picnic areas with lawns just up-slope from creeks - all encroaching on conservation lands beyond their backyard boundaries - and they maintained those lawns with gas-powered mowers. Other homeowners sprayed Roundup right down the slope to the creek, killing all the native vegetation which they considered "messy" or "weeds". Even a mayor then, built an in-ground pool on conservation authority land behind their house. This happened along important waterways in the Dundas Valley. Erosion from urban housing developments, baseball diamonds and agricultural fields also polluted our waterways. After development was allowed too close to a waterbody, the buffer vegetation (and in turn the waterway) became degraded by runoff pollution, pesticides, litter and invasive plants. No follow-up visits were done to ensure the city's recommendations had been followed. Biodiversity was not taken seriously - even a rare reptile in a meadow was not a deterrent to a residential housing development because meadows were not considered valuable -- although they make a fantastic buffer for waterways! 'On-your-honour' doesn't work with developers if you really want to protect biodiversity. Also, a private consultant firm I worked for assessed some of Hamilton's ESAs (Environmentally Sensitive Areas) in the 1990s, and we recommended a minimum buffer zone of 30 meters from any waterway, for any kind of human development including agriculture and recreation. These buffers should be part of the ecological habitat of the wetland and be comprised of suitable native species. What is the minimum buffer allowed between waterways and different types of development in Hamilton today? What is the definition of a buffer in terms of protecting waterbodies? I believe that natural buffers to waterways need to be improved to properly protect our water quality and biodiversity, and this should be investigated. All our waterways should be inspected regularly - in the field by the city - to avoid serious pollution problems like we've had. I'm happy to see some native planting projects going on in the city in recent years, and that buffers for waterbodies are part of that. This restoration work should be continued and expanded.

Secondly, some of the development plans that were proposed for our waterfront were the opposite of what Hamilton needs to do to protect our biodiversity. Your Council put a survey online that included plans for shopping, restaurants, amusement parks, paved pathways, parking lots, etc. adjacent to the Lake Ontario shoreline. These should never be options so close to a major and critically important waterbody, or a waterway of any kind. Why were these options proposed? Many residents aren't educated enough to know how these kinds of developments can harm our lake ecosystem and water quality - so allowing the public to vote on those options is irresponsible, especially when we're in a climate emergency. There was hardly a mention of native vegetation with small islands of green shown between human structures on impermeable surfaces. That's what the plans looked like, almost all very urban human uses without considering nature properly. I was disappointed to see that. Lake Ontario is the only large source of freshwater for our city, so if we continue polluting it with poor planning choices, where are we going to get water for human use in the future? Our lake is already polluted so we need to help take care of it much better with an effective native vegetation buffer to protect the shoreline. As described in the introduction to this document, the lakeshore is incredibly valuable to the biodiversity of Hamilton, and Canada. It's unique in the country so we need to respect it and allow residents to enjoy it in ways that won't degrade it.

It should be part of Hamilton's biodiversity plan to restore degraded land and aquatic areas that are important habitat for other species. In particular, there should be serious consideration to closing Cootes Drive between McMaster University and Dundas Street, removing the hump of earth that cuts the wetlands in two, and letting the whole are return to what it was. Undrain the swamp!

These targets are fine but necessarily general in nature as developed at the global level. Please view the Environment and Climate Change document: "How Much Habitat is Enough" for Great Lakes-specific targets: link. These have been used by area conservation authorities and the Hamilton Harbour RAP so some experience locally. Also please review the targets in the 2023 version of the Ontario Biodiversity Strategy just out.