“Nous Sommes Le Fleuve Saint-Laurent” French Release

From the Great Lakes to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the river knows many different landscapes and ecosystems, and protecting its water and shorelines is fraught with challenges. Between 2020 and 2025, the goal is to secure and rehabilitate key natural habitats that sustain Canada’s plants and wildlife along the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of its major tributaries.

“It’s an ecosystem where terrestrial and aquatic habitats meet and which provides immense benefits for wildlife and humans alike. Because they help control floods, protect shores from erosion, filter water, and stock carbon, and provide habitat for a wide range of species, wetlands are essential to the health of our planet! Because they’re disappearing quickly, Nature Conservancy of Canada and Age of Union have teamed up to conserve and restore wetlands along the majestic St. Lawrence River.”

– Julien Poisson, Nature Conservancy of Canada Southern Quebec Program Director 

Laurence Bouthillette volunteered with NCC and was part of the filmmaking process of We Are The Saint Lawrence. She explains:

My participation as an intern at the Nature Conservancy of Canada on the set of the film allowed me to live a unique and very enriching experience on a personal and professional level. [The] experience gave me the opportunity to discover unique territories and natural wetlands of incredible richness, given their link to the river, and understand their precariousness and the need to preserve them through concrete actions. I had the chance to deepen my knowledge thanks to the biologists working at CNC across Quebec and who accompanied my colleague Julie and myself. Special thanks to Khalil Abas, Julien Poisson, Joël Bonin, Olivier Perrotte Caron and Brian Wilson (CNC), and Dax Dasilva, Emma Dora, and Nathan O’Brien (Age of Union) for allowing us to take part in this adventure.

Age of Union believes that concerted actions are the only answer to the reality of climate change. We must protect and restore our world’s ecosystems and as engage the incredible knowledge of those working on the ground to protect the environment.

Age of Union is committed to:

• Facilitating land acquisition to secure protected pockets of ecosystems along the St Lawrence River in Quebéc;
• Contributing to habitat rehabilitation programs;
• Engaging with local communities to raise awareness, offering alternatives to farmers and initiating dialogue with First Nations communities to integrate traditional knowledge.

The majestic St. Lawrence River is one of our province’s most treasured landmarks. Be sure to check out the film We Are The Saint Lawrence in your language of choice (French or English) today to learn more about it.

Did you know? Feb. 2, 2022, is World Wetlands Day. Celebrated annually and internationally to highlight the importance of protecting wetlands around the world. Wetlands are crucial to tackling climate change: they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests and are among the most important carbon sinks of our planet.