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5.0 Community Outreach and Stewardship
The Community Outreach and Stewardship Key Activity focuses on involving whole communities in the conservation, protection and enhancement of fish habitat. Communities are typically comprised of business and industry, non-governmental and voluntary organizations, Aboriginal people, government agencies including the education sector, and individual citizens. Stewardship of fish and fish habitat involves raising awareness and understanding, education, taking action to conserve and restore fish habitat, monitoring and reporting on both the status of fish and fish habitat and on the recognition of successes. It is recognized in the Habitat Policy that fish habitat cannot be conserved and protected without the active involvement of all Canadians and sectors of society. Thus, DFO has identified the establishment of formal partnering agreements with key stakeholders as one of four priorities for the renewal of the Habitat Management Program (along with streamlining the regulatory process, national consistency and balanced implementation of the Habitat Policy). A summary of DFO’s partnering and stewardship activities for the management of fish habitat in Canada is provided in this section. National HighlightsNational Headquarters (NHQ) and Regional Community Outreach and Stewardship activities for 2001‑2002 are organized below under three of the strategic directions found in the Habitat Policy, as well as under partnering. In fiscal year 2001‑2002, there were two areas of focus for NHQ community outreach and stewardship activities. The first was on the completion of the National Fish Habitat Stewardship Action Plan that arose from the Blueprint Initiative, assuring that it was aligned with the Canada Wide Stewardship Action Plan called for by the federal, provincial, territorial Ministers at their September 2001 meeting of Joint Resource Councils. The second was the completion of a partnering framework and strategy. The purpose of the National Fish Habitat Stewardship Action Plan is to provide
a framework to promote a consistent approach to fish habitat stewardship across
Canada. It is meant to identify DFO’s national and regional responsibilities
in engaging and enabling Canadians to be responsible for conserving, restoring
and developing Canada’s fish habitat. It includes prototypes of national
and provincial habitat stewardship web portals that enable the effective and
efficient sharing of stewardship information and experience across Canada.
The Plan is to be presented for approval at the next meeting of Ministers in
September 2002. 5.1 Public Information and Education
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As reported in the 2000‑2001 Annual Report, a key challenge for the Habitat Program is developing effective partnerships to get the most value added results, given budgetary constraints and the vast range of potential partners. As noted above, partnering was identified as one of the Program’s priorities for 2001‑2002 and beyond, with particular attention being given to the establishment of formal agreements in the form of Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) and Protocols with provinces, territories and industry on the management of fish habitat.
MOUs identify priority areas for collaboration (e.g. regulatory compliance, integrated watershed planning, stewardship) and establish a governance structure to plan and report on their implementation. Separate Protocols are developed for each priority area identified in the MOU and define the roles and responsibilities as well as processes and procedures that the parties will undertake to implement the MOU. While federal, provincial and territorial MOUs are most often signed bilaterally on behalf of Canada and the province or territory, Protocols normally include all the key stakeholders with responsibilities for the particular activity.
National Headquarters coordinated the development of a national Partnering
Strategy and Framework along with the development of “Guidelines for
Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) Agreements on Fish Habitat Management”.
DFO and the provincial/territorial members of the Canadian Council of Fisheries
and Aquaculture Ministers Freshwater Fisheries Task Group worked closely to
develop a common vision and cooperative framework for collaboration on fish
habitat management. A template for FPT MOUs to be included in the Guidelines
document was discussed with provinces and territories. Even though the Guidelines
document was not yet completed, the draft template for MOUs proved to be very
useful to regions and provinces/territories beginning to negotiate MOUs.
Workshops and other preparatory work to establish MOUs on the management of fish habitat with key industry sectors also intensified in 2001‑2002, with an MOU with the Canadian Electricity Association being the most advanced, closely followed by work with the Forest Products Association of Canada and Ducks Unlimited Canada.
Examples of regional activities in habitat enhancement during fiscal year
2001‑2002 are highlighted below. Details are provided in Supporting Documents
available electronically at <http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/canwaters-eauxcan/infocentre/publications/index_e.asp>.
Newfoundland
Maritimes
Quebec
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Central and Arctic
Pacific
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Created: 2004-02-15 Updated: 2004-02-15 Reviewed: 2004-02-15 |