Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee, my name is Bob Florean and I represent the Manitoulin Area Stewardship Council, otherwise known as the MASC, and the Manitoulin Streams Improvement Association, and our community stewardship partner groups. These councils are composed of members representing the greater area public, municipalities, first nations, NGOs, and business interests from across the community serving in a volunteer capacity. Their members have a shared concern for the environment and sustainability of our rural, natural resource based, independent economy, and they all work together in a mutually cooperative and non-partisan manner to achieve positive ecological and economic outcomes for our area.
I want to tell you about the stewardship model and outline how this model benefits many aspects of our environment and dependent economies. But first, I want to talk to you about the steady decline of support for this stewardship model over the recent past years, how stewardship programs, previously undertaken by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, otherwise known as OMNR, have been cut, and how this now threatens to undermine the furthering of effective community-based environmental stewardship efforts across this province and within the Great Lakes basin.
Beginning in 1996, the OMNR began its support of the Ontario stewardship program. Since that time, this program supported, but did not direct, the actions of 46 stewardship councils. Councils were supported by a full-time coordinator and $10,000 in support seed funding annually. OMNR's support, worth $5 million annually, was used by councils to leverage an additional $26 million of outside cash and in-kind contributions. These funds annually supported more than 500 projects, involving many tens of thousands of person-days of volunteer public participation. This was carried out mainly within the Great Lakes basin.
Starting in 1981, the OMNR also administered the community fish and wildlife involvement program, otherwise known as CFWIP. This program contributed $1 million annually toward stewardship projects which restored fish and wildlife resources across the province and the Great Lakes basin. It supported nearly 600 community volunteer environmental projects worked on by many tens of thousands of community volunteers annually. Most of these efforts occurred within the Great Lakes basin. I can offer an example on how CFWIP benefited our own Manitoulin streams organization via an overall CFWIP funding allocation of $35,000 between 1995 and 2006. It was able to use this funding to leverage nearly $3 million of other funding and in-kind support for its restoration efforts.
Ontario stewardship and CFWIP were very successful programs that achieved tremendous results in the Great Lakes basin. These two programs, though, have now been cancelled since 2011 by the OMNR due to budgetary constraints. Thus, a stewardship support void now exists.
In light of all this, we understand that an aging population and infrastructure are consuming most public funds. Notwithstanding, it would be short-sighted to not adequately manage the natural resources that sustain these Great Lakes economies. Engaging the public to participate in the stewardship model can bridge the gap between a need to manage the resources and a lack of sufficient public funds to do so. I am here to try to make you understand that the stewardship model works very effectively to fill the environmental sustainability void. It works because engaging members of the public to become directly involved connects their sense of pride and dedication towards successful outcomes that benefit their community areas.
The following are our local examples of the potential gains that can be made at the community level by stewardship models.
Our Manitoulin Streams Improvement Association, a not-for-profit and incorporated volunteer community-based stewardship organization, has undertaken a number of proactive steps.
It has developed a watershed restoration based strategic plan and a class environmental assessment that covers 182 watersheds of Manitoulin Island, which was formerly approved by federal and provincial agencies. That outlines the specific actions required to be undertaken to effectively carry out watershed restoration efforts.
Manitoulin Streams has secured funding and in-kind contributions valued at nearly $3.2 million to date. These funds and efforts have been used to strategically plan island-wide efforts directed at the restoration of nearly nine kilometres of streams and adjacent riparian areas to date, efforts that have achieved a quantifiable 193% average increase of aquatic life within these restored areas.
A strategic binational document entitled, “The Sweetwater Sea: An International Biodiversity Conservation Strategy for Lake Huron” supports continuity of the aquatic restorations being undertaken by Manitoulin Streams. Its restoration successes have garnered binational and national recognition in our being awarded the binational State of the Lakes Ecological Conference, SOLEC, award in 2008 and the 2012 Canada national recreational fisheries award.
The Manitoulin Area Stewardship Council, working with our partner the Eastern Georgian Bay Stewardship Council, is undertaking a strategically focused eastern Georgian Bay north channel aquatic and economic revitalization initiative. This strategy encompasses a geographic coastal swath that includes eastern Georgian Bay and the north channel of Lake Huron, including Manitoulin Island. This strategy will work with all of our local community partners to undertake a large-scale strategic effort based on the Manitoulin Streams success model, to strategically outline and plan specific actions needed to achieve good on-the-ground results, build the capacity and skills needed to support this strategy, and economically evaluate the benefits and effectiveness of the actions taken.
Our Ontario elk restoration committee's stewardship efforts successfully introduced the once extinct wapiti, otherwise known as elk, across Ontario and especially into this Great Lakes basin area, an effort which the Ontario government historically attempted to do but was unsuccessful in implementing. This community-based stewardship model succeeded in restoring this big game species to the Ontario landscape, raising $300,000 in public donations to achieve this. Estimates show that it would have cost OMNR 10 times that amount. Ontario now benefits ecologically and economically from this re-establishment effort.
Another example can be seen in the United Walleye Club's community stewardship efforts in the greater Sudbury district which have, since 1991, re-established fisheries across a large geographic area in lakes once considered dead due to many years of industrial sulphur fallout. The group has, through their annual cooperative efforts: cultured eggs and fish that they raise in 12 community hatcheries and 18 rearing ponds; raised and stocked approximately 3,600,000 fry and 540,000 fingerlings; expended nearly 4,500 man-days of community-based volunteer efforts; and restored and enhanced fisheries within this regional area that now contribute significantly to the local aquatic ecosystem and to the economy of this part of the Lake Huron basin.
I laud the Government of Ontario for its funding programs which support the Great Lakes basin environmental restoration efforts of organizations like ours. These funding programs include the recently announced recreational fisheries conservation partnership program and the Canada-Ontario agreement on the Great Lakes annex, which has been a very beneficial tool for us, but delays in getting this agreement in place and the limited funding amounts that COA represents can hamper positive community stewardship momentum.
Environment Canada's eco-action program has been a great funding support for aquatic restoration focus groups such as ours.
With respect to the Lake Simcoe and southeastern Georgian Bay cleanup fund, I wondered why the geographic scope of that initiative stopped just short of our own adjacent area, especially when you consider our level of strategic preparedness and expertise.
The examples I gave are only a small sample of what can be accomplished via the community-based stewardship model. Stewardship organizations can more effectively engage their communities to become more productively involved in successful resource sustainability outcomes. They are also successful in leveraging greater levels of funding from outside sources. Governments can no longer do it alone. Along with a better supported stewardship model, we can together achieve great results for the benefit of all.
Therefore, I would like the standing committee to make recommendations for further support of the stewardship model within the Great Lakes basin. The sustainability of our communities and the natural resource values we are dependent upon require this.