Ecological Sustainability and Community Based Research

This episode features a conversation about the Woodland and Waterways EcoWatch project co-ordinated by Haliburton’s own Ulinks Community-Based Research group. Provincial government environmental research has been in decline for many years as the Ministries of Natural Resources and the Environment had been reduced by successive provincial governments to mere shadows of their former selves. Lake associations and other local voluntary organizations with ecological mandates have attempted as best they can to fill the resulting research void through citizen science and other forms of community-based research. Ulinks’ Woodlands and Waterways EcoWatch project aims to increase the support for local research to enhance the ecological sustainability of our lakes and forests and the ecosystems that keep them healthy. Ulinks reps, Andy Gordon, Sadia Fischer, and Jim Prince describe the history behind the creation of this new collaboration and its implications for enhancing our knowledge of local lake and terrestrial health.