Turtles of Turtle Island
Turtle habitats are being disturbed or fragmented but Magnetawan First Nation is working hard to implement stewardship initiatives to help these culturally significant creatures survive.
The Story
In Ontario, on the eastern coast of Georgian Bay, you will find an internationally designated protected area with a vast mixture of wetlands, rocky outcrops and forests called the UNESCO biosphere. The area plays an important role in cleaning and filtering mother earth's life blood water by removing toxins, greenhouse gasses and storing CO2. It is also the largest archipelago of freshwater islands on earth with a large variety of plants, animals and aquatic species, fifty of which are considered species-at-risk.

As our society expanded, we filled in these waterways to make way for urban development. This practice has damaged many of mother earth's natural filtering systems leaving the few we have left have to deal with all the pollutants from everyday urban life. Often our urban waterways are taken for granted but they are not just part of the scenery. What may only be a small creek close to your house will eventually lead to a river, which leads to an estuary, which leads to the ocean.

Magnetawan First nation is a Anishinaabe community with less than 500 members and has successfully taken control of their nation’s traditional territories land management. By applying their traditional knowledge alongside western knowledge they successfully manage and protect the freshwater turtles in their wetlands. And they achieve this even as their nation's demand for development increases due to their population growth in the surrounding areas.
The Location
