The Landscape Ecology Approach: The Kennebec Wetland Complex

The Kennebec Wetland Complex covers areas of North and Central Frontenac. It spans from Kennebec Lake in the south to Big Gull Lake in the north, and from Hungry and Mink Lakes in the east to Highway 41 in the west.

It includes three types of wetlands: fens, swamps, and marshes. These wetlands capture rainfall over a 2,500 hectare area. That is enough water to attenuate flooding peaks on the Salmon River up to four days after a major storm. Long-term water quality improvement by nutrient removal – the positive water purification effects of the complex – are so important that the lakes in the complex area are protected by the province as provincially significant.

But the largest portion of the complex that includes most of the wetlands has limited protections. Without a sensible plan to manage these unprotected areas, the natural qualities of the whole complex may not be sustainable. Part of the reason for this is that the approach and scoring methodology used to protect the lakes, does not consider the larger interconnected ecosystem. A landscape ecology approach to the entire Kennebec Wetland Complex would increase the chance that it and its natural qualities will be protected for future generations.