Environment committee  We deal with a really wide range of programs and seek funding sources where we can, but I'm not familiar with that one.

Environment committee  Absolutely—

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  I can certainly confirm that I'm not familiar with the acronym, so I don't believe we've done any work with that program.

Environment committee  Certainly. We still participate through that program. One of the real special parts of that program, as I understand it, is that farmers sit down in workshops and work through their environmental plans. There's some learning that happens. There's some commitment that happens when we work through a workshop.

Environment committee  The challenges facing the Grand are many. We're addressing them through a water management plan, working with our municipalities. The challenge, I would say, is intensification. Certainly there's an awful lot of urban development, and with all of the sewage that gets treated and then the effluent that's put into the river, it becomes extremely challenging for the river to assimilate that.

Environment committee  Thank you. Certainly, I think all circumstances are different. Our watershed is highly populated, so of course that's going to impact people. People live in five major cities and throughout the watershed the majority is farmed. A big portion of our watershed, if you go back 200 years, would have been forested, wetlands and grasslands, like much of the country, I guess.

Environment committee  I would certainly recommend that the federal government adopt a similar approach. We're fundamentally a water management agency, but a long time ago folks recognized that you cannot manage water effectively without understanding what's happening on the landscape. That's why we do things like plant trees.

Environment committee  We've worked through the environmental farm plan for many years. Filing an environmental farm plan is one of the requirements to get funding support from our rural water quality program. Continuing to develop and enhance the environmental farm plan is an important contribution the federal government could make.

Environment committee  Continue to support and build on the environmental farm plan.

Environment committee  I don't actually have a recommendation that's specific to our watershed. We're an organization that owns a lot of land, 20,000 hectares. We're in a very highly populated watershed. We find that the landowners do as good a job managing the land as we're able to. The land is part of an active farming community.

Environment committee  There's a real potential threat with the high value of cropping right now. We've seen an awful lot of land that hasn't been tiled. There's an awful lot of drainage equipment out on the landscape right now in our watershed. Some of the lands that were not really profitable to farm five years ago might all of a sudden be profitable.

Environment committee  To provide some local assistance, possibly, for some of these environmental goods and services. Mr. Lowe referenced that it's the public good that benefits from environmental goods and services, and it is quite appropriate that the public contribute to some of that.

Environment committee  We work very closely with Ducks Unlimited, and I was glad to hear other witnesses speak about other partnerships like that. When you flood an area like that, you can start to attract wildlife and birds very quickly.

Environment committee  I'm not sure I can say it any better than you just did. You really do have to look at a broader picture and look at the incremental impact or the consequential impact of action to protect one versus another. If you protect the ecosystem, the species will have a place to exist.