Dear Editor:
I would like to recommend that all local governments, including the regional districts, cancel the mosquito control program in light of our changing world.
Worldwide, the scientific community has been appointed to study, to research its findings and to develop strategies and solutions to address global warming and climate change.
One of the most crucial strategies is to restore, expand and maintain wetlands and forest landscapes and to recreate healthy, strong, diverse ecosystems worldwide.
Such actions will ensure that these ecosystems will be able to withstand rising temperatures and to maintain their resilience into the future. As well, they will store huge amounts of carbon and release huge quantities of oxygen.
Scientists believe that such strategies will slow down and help to mitigate rising temperatures.
The Canadian government and the United Nations have endorsed these strategies. They state that the time to act is now.
Mosquitoes are a keystone species in our local ecosystem here and worldwide. In our own experience, during the years of the mosquito control program, we have observed many less numbers of barn swallows, cliff swallows, night hawks and other birds, frogs and toads, fish, insects, etc., all of which depend on the mosquito populations as their primary food source.
All of our prey species reduce mosquito populations greatly and help to maintain adequate populations of mosquitoes necessary for a thriving, vibrant, diverse ecosystem.
If the mosquito control program is ended, our ecosystems will be on the way to recovery. David Suzuki says that we are all “embedded” in our ecosystems and we rely on them completely for our good health and our very survival. It all depends on us and the decisions we make today.
I would urge local governments to establish study and planning groups to address the changes required to fulfill the objectives of the global scientific community and government agencies.
Thank you for your serious consideration.
Catherine McDougall
Summerland