Wetland conservation has been a common theme in how provincial parties pledge to deal with water issues.

The Liberals have committed to a no-net loss wetland policy, while the Greens say they want a halt to all drainage of wetlands. The PCs have announced an ecological goods and services program that would pay landowners for keeping natural wetlands.

"We're starting to get some visibility about the importance of wetlands. We've been very busy and active in terms of trying to get the word out...and it's good to see the public and politicians are starting to take notice and it's starting to filter into some of the campaigning that's been going on," says Greg Bruce, Head of Industry and Government Relations with Ducks Unlimited Canada.

"We would like to see a commitment from the parties to keeping wetlands, to ensuring that we don't lose any more wetlands and to move forward in restoring wetlands," he says.

Bruce says they believe an integrated approach is needed.

"There's really no single silver bullet for keeping wetlands on the landscape...we need a mixture of tools to do that. We're looking at a mixture of incentives to reward producers for keeping wetlands on the landscape, but at the same time we feel there's a need for a regulatory backstop as well," he says.

After years of discussion, a pilot project in the RM of Blanshard and an ongoing wetland program in the RM of Dufferin, could we finally see the provincial government fully support an ecological goods and services program that would reward landowners for environmentally-beneficial practices, such as conserving wetlands?

"There have certainly been rumblings from some of the parties," says Bruce. "The Conservatives have started to talk about some incentives. The NDP have had some incentive programs for restoration. I think all parties are stepping up to the plate."

He says wetland protection is one of the best investments a government can make. For example, DU estimates that over 100 thousand hectares of wetland have been lost in southwest Manitoba over the last forty to sixty years.

"Just to put that in context...the flood storage capacity lost due to the drainage is more than double the flood storage capacity of the Shellmouth Reservoir. The additional phosphorous and nitrogen loading from this drainage will offset the additional phosphorous and nitrogen that will be removed from the City of Winnipeg's waste treatment upgrades," he says. "And on the greenhouse gas file, the 100 thousand hectares that we've lost have released approximately 33 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, which is comparable to two years of emissions from all the light vehicles in Canada. And that doesn't even speak to the biodiversity, the groundwater recharge, the ecotourism and the other benefits that wetlands provide."