Meeting with Oak Ridges Moraine Community Groups

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Meeting with Oak Ridges Moraine Community Groups

• February- March 2006

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Table of Contents

• What is MTM?
• MTM Activities
• Monitoring Advisory Committee
• Community-based Monitoring Framework
• Community-based Monitoring Network
• Partnership Development
• Community-level Strategic Monitoring Plan
• Next Steps

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What is MTM?

• A project that builds a network of
  community-based monitoring across the moraine
• Engaged citizens become effective agents in
  protecting the ORM addressing needs, filling
  gaps, reducing duplication
• Monitoring results will be measured against the
  policies of the ORM Conservation Plan and can be
  used to expose problems and issues that are
  currently not dealt with through the Plan
• Three Innovations
• COMMUNITY leadership
• INTEGRATION of environmental and policy
  monitoring through leading edge information
  management technology
• DEVELOPMENT of a Community-Based Monitoring
  Framework defining roles

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MTM Activities

• Stakeholders Meeting, Jun. 05
• Building community interest and networks
• Workshops, Sept. 05
• Field Days, Oct. 05
• Meetings Feb./Mar. 06
• Status report ORMCP implementation
• Gap analysis whos doing what?
• Building technological capacity
• Creation of Monitoring Advisory Committee and
  draft Monitoring Framework

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Monitoring Advisory Committee

• Group of stakeholders from community, government,
  academia, First Nations, industry
• Oversee the development of a moraine-wide
  monitoring framework everyone has a role in
  multi-party monitoring, including volunteers!
• Provide feedback on the progress of the
  Community-Based Strategic Monitoring Plans
• Ensure the employment of leading edge science and
  best practices in community engagement

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Community-based Monitoring Framework

• Aquatic

Baseflow- relationship to quality and quantity,
watershed development/ water qualityInfrared
photography, Fish habitat Benthics, Anecdotal,
Toxic hotspots, Private wells, Impervious
surfaces, Intermittent streams
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Community-based Monitoring Framework

• Policy

These can fit into either large or medium Land
use change, application requirements, water
taking Training modules/guide books, Council
watch, Application quality review
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Community-based Monitoring Network
Kawartha Heritage Conservancy
Valley Voices
Oak Ridges Friends of Environment
Community Resource Centre
Concerned Citizens of Northumberland
Protect the Ridges
Concerned Citizens of King Township
Richmond Hill Naturalists
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Canadian Community Monitoring Network

• Four Key Phases of CBM

Community Mapping Gathering information about
the community helps to design CBM that is unique
to the community and its interests. It provides
the opportunity for decision-makers to describe
their information needs and the chance to
maximize collaboration between partners.
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Canadian Community Monitoring Network

• Four Key Phases of CBM

Participation Assessment Understanding the groups
and people involved in CBM generates knowledge
about how to engage them, use their skills and
meet their needs. Participation Assessment helps
find the best approaches for building capacity.
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Canadian Community Monitoring Network

• Four Key Phases of CBM

Capacity Building Enhancing the communitys
ability to carry out monitoring requires capacity
in the form of resources and skills both social
and technical. Good coordination, training and
information delivery mechanisms are essential.
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Canadian Community Monitoring Network

• Four Key Phases of CBM

Information Gathering Delivery Communication
flows through all aspects of CBM. Educating
people about monitoring, identifying local
priorities, and reporting back the results rely
on effective communication. When information
needs are identified, monitoring becomes
demand-driven, which informs the development of
more effective tools and solutions for local
environmental issues. The decision-makers then
need to feed this knowledge and skill into
appropriate local choices that are adaptive.
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Partnership Development

• Build local capacity across the moraine
• Build ecological and monitoring skills at local
  level
• Broaden volunteer base
• Develop strong anchors in moraine network
• Broaden governance through shared decision-making

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Partnership Community Groups

• Brings local knowledge about community
• Brings local experience
• Brings credibility
• Brings enthusiasm and willing people

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Partnership - MTM

• Brings established credible citizen science
  policy knowledge
• Brings suite of established tested protocols
• Brings community-based monitoring knowledge
  skills
• Brings organizational and capacity-building skill
  sets including data management

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Community-Level Strategic Monitoring Plan

• A process to guide local monitoring efforts
  within context of overall framework
• Developed jointly between findings of Monitoring
  Advisory Committee (MAC) and community mapping
  workshops
• Context-specific with focus on structure and
  sustainability
• Reviewed annually

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Next Steps

• Development of training workshops for ecological
  policy monitoring- March-December 2006
• Development of Community-Level Strategic
• Monitoring Plans- Ongoing
• Training workshops- March 2007