The acidification of freshwater wetlands, through either natural or anthropomorphic processes, can have a drastic effect on the biological habitats and communities contained within these systems. The toxic effects imposed by heavy metals, which become more soluble at low pH, together with the ability of heavy metals to bind with and make unavailable essential plant nutrients, lead to changes in community structure and function that result it systems characterized by very low levels of both primary and secondary production. The problem of wetland acidification is most prominent in industrialized regions of the world where local geomorphology, particularly the presence of igneous bedrock of low solubility, leads to water systems having limited buffering capacity. In Nova Scotia it has been estimated that approximately 60 percent of the total land area has terrain characteristics highly sensitive to acid rain and an additional 25 percent of the landscape has a moderately high sensitivity to acid rain. A large proportion of the freshwater wetlands in Nova Scotia have little or no buffering capacity. This is probably typical of other areas of the Atlantic Maritimes as well, since the overall geomorphology is similar.

Managing acidic wetlands for aquatic wildlife is difficult because the major limiting factor is the lack of an adequate natural food supply. Artificial feeding of wildlife is costly and not generally considered to be logistically feasible on a large scale, particularly in remote areas. To manage these systems realistically requires a means of stimulating natural production processes in a way that results in sustained production. One approach to this is through the controlled addition of artificial fertilizers

The concept of adding artificial fertilizers to enhance the productivity of acidic wetlands arose from observations that acidic lakes respond well to the addition of nutrients in terms of increased primary and secondary production and a much improved habitat for aquatic wildlife, especially ducks This has prompted wildlife managers to suggest that this may prove a cost-effective management strategy for programmes designed to increase the abundance of waterfowl and other species of aquatic wildlife in acidic wetlands of low productivity. The application of this technique, however, requires careful consideration as to the situations where it is most likely to produce the desired results and, more importantly, of the potential this management strategy may have for producing environmental impacts inconsistent with the preservation and maintenance of viable and desirable habitats within and adjacent to the biological systems being fertilized. Accordingly, in the early spring of 1990, the Acadia Centre for Estuarine Research (ACER), in cooperation with the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture, Canadian Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forests and Wildlife Habitat Canada, began a three-year study to evaluate the potential and feasibility of rehabilitation of acidified freshwater wetlands through controlled artificial fertilization.