SAM Newsletter #26 Winter 2020

A Win for Wildlife - reducing plastic in our environment  SAM was happy to see that on January 29 the Provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced a provincial ban on the distribution of retail plastic bags, with the regulations to come into effect on July 1, 2020.  SAM first examined the issue of single use plastic bags at the 2008 Fall Meeting, hosted by the Town of Stephenville Crossing. Members discussed  a reduction in plastic bag use, an idea that was put forth at the 2008 MNL Convention. SAM members felt the negative impact of plastic bags on wildlife habitat was an important issue and that SAM needed to take a stronger advocacy role. As a result members passed a motion in 2008 to write letters to all municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as to head offices of major grocery chains. The letter encouraged them to take leadership on this issue and bring it back to the forefront. SAM continued the discussion with our members and in 2015, and again in 2017 MNL passed resolutions, sponsored by the Town of Torbay, to prohibit retail stores from providing single-use plastic bags to customers. The next step was to support the resolution. In 2017 SAM's President sat on the MNL "Ban the Bag" Advocacy Committee. In 2019, SAM participated in the social media day of action organized by Plastic Bag Ban NL , as well as the public consultation on the draft legislation held by Engage NL. Finally, at the 2019 Spring AGM members discussed details of a potential policy and what a 'good ban' would look like. There are many opinions on what is a good ban, and what are good alternatives to plastic bags. As an example, some concerns brought forward at the 2019 SAM AGM included: Will the ban increase the purchase of other plastic bags? Will it lead to the production of thicker plastic that will be considered 'multi-use'? and aren't some alternatives also putting pressure on our environment, such as the amount of water needed to produce paper and fabric. At the meeting, SAM displayed some of the better alternatives to single use plastic bags: Reuse other plastic packaging such as bread bags Jute or hessian bags that are compostable Cloth bags, preferably made from up-cycled fabric Cardboard or plastic 'green' boxes Paper bags such as gift bags Mesh produce bags Pocket sized bags or folded plastic bags Multi-use plastic bags During the discussion a few key ideas surfaced: 1) This is a first step: Banning single use plastic bags only scratches the surface of the larger plastic pollution problem. From plastic packaging, to micro plastics in our oceans, a ban single use plastic bags is a great beginning, but shouldn't be the end of the discussion. 2) There needs to be a cultural shift: people need to be in support of using alternatives and this might mean changing their lifestyle. Municipalities can help by supporting positive messages and setting examples for residents. 3) One bag for LIFE: According to many sources, the best alternative to single use plastic bags is having one bag, no matter what it is made out of, that is used over and over and over; a bag for life! SAM's double sided poster and fact sheet presented at the SAM AGM 2019. Would you like this poster for your small business? Send us an email. After having a chance to review the plastic bag regulations presented on January 29th, we are happy to say the policy is a step in the right direction. Going forward we would like to see a communication campaign done by the Province, encouraging the use of good alternatives and the idea of having one bag for life. For more information on what is happening in the rest Canada see this list of shopping bag regulations across Canada. Some business and SAM communities have not waited for the provincial ban to start reducing plastic. The NLC in 2018, and Sobey's on January 31, 2020 have taken retail plastic bags out of their stores. A number of SAM members have already taken action: - Happy Valley Goose Bay - Banned retail plastic bags on January 1, 2020 - Cartwright - Banned retail plastic bags December 2018 - New-Wes-Valley - Handed out reusable bags to residents January 2019 SAM is happy to see movement in the direction that will help to support wildlife and their habitat in our province. Let's keep up the good work and keep the conversation going! Cream Puffins: Conservation & Confection Sometimes you need a conversation starter, and sometimes you just need a snack. Susan Schubel did both by creating 'Cream Puffins'. Schubel works with Project Puffin, Audubon's program to restore seabird colonies in decline. Feeling inspired? The Town of Come by Chance  was at the opening of the Cleary Trail this past fall with these owl cupcakes pictured right. Raising awareness about conservation and wildlife in your community might be as simple as eggs, sugar, and butter. The full article and recipe can be found at  'Cream Puffins' from audubon.org Fighting Climate Change with Nature On February 5th - 6th, over 400 people met in Ottawa to talk about nature based climate change solutions. SAM Conservation Biologist Laura King participated as a representative of Nature NL and writes about her experience. Discussions at the Nature-based Climate Change Solutions. Photo by Nature NL

Recently as part of a Nature Canada trip to Ottawa for Nature NL (where I volunteer as President) I had the chance to take in an interesting conference that helped me expand my thinking around the conservation areas and climate. The Nature-based Climate Solutions summit looks at all the different things that we might do, as a conservation community, to fight climate change in natural ways. Make no mistake, cutting emissions and reducing our consumption should be our top priorities on this issue. But turning to natural solutions and taking care of our lands and waters can help supplement our efforts, and we can explain these extra benefits to others so that we all understand that conserving land, for example, is a major plus when it comes to climate action. Pathways we can follow to create nature based climate change solutions presented by Amanda Reed, from Nature United. The four main categories of nature-based climate change solutions are natural infrastructure, protected areas, restoration, and improved management of our lands and waters. One of the main reason that many of these are climate solutions, although we might not think of them that way at first, is that our ecosystems store carbon, and healthier places store even more. So for example, tree planting, aquatic restoration, or preserving a natural marsh that helps filter municipal water - these are all climate change projects too. Natural peatlands store about 20 grams of carbon per metre square per year, for example. To better illustrate that, let's consider the Gambo Bog conservation area in the Town of Gambo. At 417 hectares and ~90% peatland, this beautiful wetland conserves about 375 hectares of natural peatlands, and keeps about 75 000 kg of carbon locked into the ground each year. View of the Gambo Bog. This enormous peatland can lock away tens of thousands of kilograms of Carbon. Each municipality could quickly calculate this for their conserved and natural areas, and come up with an approximate figure that shows how they are doing their part to use nature to help slow climate change. And together, we make a difference. Imagine the amount of carbon stored across all of our 100+ conservation areas in our province, year after year. Conveying these climate benefits will hopefully help us understand that our land conservation efforts here with SAM in NL benefit not only our wildlife populations and species at risk, but help prevent carbon from being released into our atmosphere. Conserving where possible, and restoring where necessary, is a superb approach to taking care of our peatlands and other wetlands. And something we can feel good about from a climate perspective as well. I'm looking forward to integrating what I've learned in Ottawa in my work here.  As the climate changes, so too must our thinking, and the ways we approach conservation. Interested in learning more? You can watch the conference for free online and access the extensive, and growing, library of climate resources they've pulled together. Watch Day 1 Watch Day 2  SAM Network News & Updates SAM Conservation Fund Scholarship Application is online  the scholarship deadline is May 1st, 2020. The $1000 scholarship recognizes a student from Newfoundland and Labrador that has a passion for environmental conservation and stewardship work in their community.   Apply for Funding  Looking to get your next environmental stewardship project off the ground in your community? Find over 50 potential funding grants here. Need help? Email us for more info. SAM Steward Award: Recognizing our environmental stewardship leaders The SAM Steward Award has been created to recognize these heroes of environmental stewardship. SAM hopes this award will inspire people to  support wildlife habitat conservation and stewardship. SAM member municipalities can nominate individuals. The selection will be done prior to SAM meetings by the SAM Officers Committee. If at all possible, it is our hope that the selected individual will attend a SAM meeting to receive the award. SAM Members, please see our website and send your nominations to samcontactus@gmail.com. The nomination deadline is May 1, 2020. World Wetlands Day 2020: Libraries across NL celebrate World Wetlands Day is celebrated globally on February 2nd each year to mark the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands. This year SAM wanted to reach out to public libraries. Over 30 of our SAM members have a public library in their community, and the public library system has 95 libraries across the province. For World Wetlands Day SAM created a library program to encourage public libraries to celebrate wetland conservation. Many libraries participated by creating displays, having wetland themed story-times, and inviting special guests to talk about wetlands.  Pictured below is the wetlands display at the Gander Public Library. Thank you to all the libraries that participated in the program! If you would like to know more see our website or email us.

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