Fragmentation of land in Montreal poses a threat to ecosystems

Local 514 recently visited Technoparc, a park in Saint Laurent, Montreal which the City of Montreal is looking to turn into a conservation area. This would be beneficial to a numerous variety wildlife that calls this park home, including over 200 different species of birds.

Despite the move towards a conservation park, this will not include privately owned land in Technoparc that is going to be developed on or the new transit system that is tunneling under the park. While development by company Hypertec has not yet begun, the development of Montreal's new light transit rail system the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) continues. It has not been proven that the tunnelling under Technoparc has caused sinkholes, but some conservationists suspect a link between the two.

"There weren’t any projects that looked exactly at the causal effect of the RÉM boring under this site, but … it’s a telling piece of evidence that they saw this swamp basically drain following this tunneling under the site,” said Emory Shaw, a Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University.

Shaw has had some of his students visit Technoparc to conduct research projects. He said none of these projects have focused on the effect's of the RÉM, but changes have been noticed to the area since development began as well as over the last few decades. He said students are assessing changes in the area from now since the 1970s/1980s. 

He said fragmentation has a negative effect on species and the ecosystem. He described fragmentation as the breaking up of the land, including some of the park being conserved and some being developed on.