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This is the time to stand up for frogs, forest and water conservation

Mar 26, 2026

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” —W.H. Auden “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” —attributed to Benjamin Franklin “Overdrafts on aquifers are one reason some of our geologist colleagues are convinced that water shortages will bring the human population explosion to a halt. There are substitutes for oil; there is no substitute for fresh water.” —Paul R. Ehrlich “Where water flows, equality grows.” —UN World Water Day International Day of Forests is marked on March 21, and World Water Day on March 22. Water and forests are critically intertwined. When there is deforestation of large tracts of primeval forest, a steady decline in water accessibility takes hold. The land heats up and biodiversity languishes. An article in ScienceDirect,“Trees, Forest and Water: cool insights for a hot world,” points out that a solution for our forests and water conservation is reachable:“Forests and trees must be recognized as prime regulators within the water, energy and carbon cycles. If these functions are ignored, planners will be unable to assess, adapt to or mitigate the impacts of changing land cover and climate. Our call to action targets a reversal of paradigms, from a carbon-centric model to one that treats the hydrologic and climate-cooling effects of trees and forests as the first order of priority.” https://tinyurl.com/water-trees-and-forests Women and girls are the first to experience water scarcity. UN World Water Day 2026 looks at how gender inequality affects women’s lives. In a powerful TED Talk titled “Water is a women’s issue. Here’s why,” water and sanitation campaigner Eleanor Allen focuses on how it is vital for communities to have clean drinking water and sanitation near their homes, schools and places of work. When this happens in areas of clean water scarcity or inadequate sanitation, women’s and girls’ lives are almost magically transformed, enabling them to pursue education and be free of the scourge of waterborne diseases as well as violence perpetrated against them. As a result, men’s lives are also vastly improved. https://tinyurl.com/eleanor-allen-water The UN World Water Day website elaborates: “Where people lack safe drinking water and sanitation close to home, inequalities increase, with women and girls bearing the brunt. They collect water. They manage water. They care for people made sick by unsafe water. They lose time, health, safety, and opportunities. And too often, the systems that govern water leave women and girls out of decision-making, leadership, funding and representation. This makes the water crisis a women’s crisis. We need a transformative, rights-based approach to solving these challenges, where women’s voices are heard and their agency recognized. All women must be equitably represented at all levels of water leadership – helping design every pipe and policy. And women must drive change in water as engineers, farmers, scientists, sanitation workers and community leaders.” https://tinyurl.com/observing-water-day The great biologist, Nature activist and may I say soothsayer (who sometimes predicted wrongly) Paul R. Ehrlich died this month. Over the last 30 years I have had the good fortune to read his books on overpopulation, consumption and

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From migratory wildlife to garden planning, March has it all

Mar 15, 2026

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”  —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations “One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the spring.”  —Aldo Leopold “Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.”  —William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale The month of March is unpredictable. A storm of ice and snow is always a possibility, but just as suddenly bright crisp days are there for cross-country skiing, or a chair set on melting snow for us to catch the lengthening days of sunshine. Mark Twain once exclaimed: “In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”  This is a month when Nature stirs in Québec. Migratory animals begin to move into or out of the province. Whether it is the greater snow goose, or whales in the St. Lawrence, March marks the start of enormous activity for animals. Meanwhile, some whale species are changing their migratory patterns because warming oceans are demanding they hunt in new locations as climate warming is pushing their prey to new areas.  Many burrowing creatures who will hibernate through most of the winter can now be spotted. Typically the American robin will be seen huddled on a branch in inclement conditions late in the month, and people will comment on their first sighting, concerned that the soil has not thawed enough for the newly arrived birds to dig for worms. Here in Québec we also associate March with maple syrup time. The earth is warming and trees are moving nutrients from their roots up through their trunks to burgeoning buds for May’s wondrous summer leaves to capture carbon dioxide and release oxygen. As we move through the countryside, it is common to see vast amounts of water vapour emerging from maple sugar cabins. Many houses will have traditional metal sap buckets attached to maple trees. Both private and commercial celebrations take place and can easily be located throughout Québec. March is also the time when humans start to plan with the awakening of Nature. The longer sunlit days inspire us to shake off winter’s lethargy. The seed catalogues are with us, and if you missed the mid-winter ritual of perusing the ones that arrived in December or January and ordering the seeds of your choice nice and early, you will still be able to find racks of seeds in all the hardware stores, and perhaps next year you will make your selection from a specialist publication. Here is a website that lists Canadian seed catalogues: https://tinyurl.com/catalogues-seeds Over several decades a cycle of growing plants has emerged for me. After receiving vegetable and flower seeds by post in February, I sow various lettuce varieties in my indoor mini-greenhouses. Many people even eat their own-grown lettuces in January. As long as you have adequate ultraviolet light you need

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