While negotiators were meeting at the UN biodiversity conference, a resident of an Ontario city was negotiating with municipal officials to protect biodiversity in her front yard. But as the woman in that city discovered, municipal grass and weeds bylaws (“property standards”) are regularly enlisted to cut down habitat, in the process diminishing local biodiversity and propping up the monocultural esthetic of clipped lawns and “tidy” gardens. Municipal grass and weeds bylaws are rife with vague language and they’re subjectively interpreted by enforcement officers in response to neighbours upset by landscapes that looks “different” or “unmanaged.”Quite simply, grass and weeds bylaws are weaponized against habitat and biodiversity. Their esthetically based language has been ruled in court decisions to be an infringement of Charter-protected rights, but vague, subjective grass and weeds bylaws exist in virtually every municipality in Canada. Widespread adoption of lawn-to-habitat conversion requires supportive local bylaws.

Source: thestar December 29, 2022 05:32 UTC