Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 14, Number 4 • Fall 2006
Lake Huron Basin Update
A Model of Watershed Collaboration: Lessons in Structure
By Geoff Peach, Lake Huron Center for Coastal Conservation
Working collaboratively at the grassroots level has become a
normal mode of business for most environmental organizations.
In southwestern Ontario, a local watershed based agency has
formalized inter-organizational collaboration in what is called the
Maitland Watershed Partnership. This partnership has brought
agencies, farmers, business, industry and ENGO’s together to
dialogue, strategize and at times embark collectively on
environmental improvement projects.
The Maitland River watershed is located about midway along the
southern Lake Huron shoreline, and is primarily a rural,
agriculture-based watershed. Its area covers approximately 2500
square kilometers. It has had a decades long issue with poor
surface water quality, which has contributed to the posting of
area beaches warning of risks to swimming due to high bacteria.
In addition, high amounts of nitrate and phosphorous have been
a concern from the standpoint of enrichment of local waters and
harm to aquatic organisms. On the landside, concerns included
the relative lack of forest cover (18% for the watershed), and the
effects of increasingly intensive agricultural operations.
The Maitland Watershed Partnerships (MWP) project was initiated
to improve the self-reliance of organizations in the Maitland
watershed. The goal of the MWP is to identify innovative
approaches to improving the long-term social, economic, and
environmental health of the Maitland watershed.
The project objectives were:
- To develop a better understanding of the major natural resource management issues,
- To build a capacity of local service providers to deal with these issues, and
- To build alliances among service providers to deal with these issues.
In March 1999, 27 organizations and agencies with mandates
relating to natural resource management came together to
identify and evaluate resource management issues facing the
Maitland watershed. Three priority topics were identified:
aquatic systems, terrestrial or natural areas systems, and
ecological agriculture.
The Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) housed and
staffed the project from its office in Wroxeter,Ontario.The Project
Coordinator, MVCA technical staff, and resource experts assisted
with the project.
Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) provided seed
funding in January of 1999 to initiate the project. This funding
was used to provide facilitators, technical and administrative
support to the Steering Committee and the service teams as they
developed collaborative management strategies.
As organizations joined the project they provided additional
financing in the form of in-kind and cash contributions.
Contributions from participating organizations were directed
towards demonstration and research projects to help build a
better understanding of the socio-economic-environmental
attributes of the watershed.
The MWP represents a diverse group successfully involving local
community members in watershed initiatives designed to
improve the ecological health of the watershed, and the quality
of the waters it contributes into Lake Huron. The MWP is an
ongoing project, and both the Water Team and Terrestrial Team
meet quarterly to discuss current issues. These groups work to
identify small grassroots projects, like riverbank rehabilitation,
water testing programs, and other small scale initiatives
involving local community members, organizations and agencies.
A CD was produced outlining how the MWP project was
structured and the lessons learned from the process. The CD also
includes descriptions of the research and demonstration projects
undertaken by the service teams. For more information on this
project, contact the MVCA office (tel: 519-335-3557 or email:
maitland@mvca.on.ca) to obtain a copy of the CD.
For more iformation:
Geoff Peach, Lake Huron Center for Coastal Conservation
P.O. Box 178, Blyth, Ontario, Canada N0M 1H0
PH: (519) 523-4478 • Fax: (519) 523-4929
E-mail: geoff.peach@lakehuron.on.ca
Website: www.lakehuron.on.ca
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