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LETTER: Saving Maple Ridge wetlands imperative to halting climate change

Preserving the ‘invaluable’ natural habitat in Yennadon is key to preserving the environment: resident
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It was quite a sight to see Friday, July 10, 2020, when Colt came across all these deer in the front yard of his great uncles home in the Yennadon area of Maple Ridge. (Colt McMyn/Special to The News)

Dear Editor,

If we genuinely want to do something about climate change, we need to stop and think about what we are doing.

Wetlands absorb more carbon than even a rainforest does. Think of the value in that.

A wetland is what we have been blessed with here in Maple Ridge, at 128th Avenue and 232nd Street.

RELATED: Maple Ridge council advances Yennadon Lands plan

They are 63 acres of what our city is calling the Yennadon Lands and look toward ridding us of this precious wetland and most likely the fish fry that swim in the creeks and the many other creatures who depend on it for their home.

No matter what they say about saving it, you know how things happen when the goal is to replace it with an industrial park.

The creatures and their wetland will not win out.

I firmly believe the industrial park needs to go somewhere else.

I don’t know how you feel, but I certainly have lived happily here in B.C. without the forest fires and more than 40-degree summers.

SIMILAR SENTIMENT: LETTER – Yennadon is too ecologically valuable to destroy

It’s time to wake up, stop, and think about what we are doing.

I look back and when I add up all the years that my many family members have enjoyed living adjacent to this wonderful diverse wetland, it adds up to more than 270 years of knowing it’s there and leaving it to its wonder, holding a place in our hearts that once it’s gone, will be gone forever.

Locally, we must be the change we want to see in the world.

We are losing our ability to live on this planet, 63 acres at a time.

Gail Neufeld, Maple Ridge

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