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Photo: Lesley Gavelin
In the MD of Bighorn and the MD of Rocky View, the ‘hands-off’ approach to supporting watershed and community groups is showing success. This strategy encourages groups to have high ownership, be self-supporting and leads to long-term success for the groups.
“We realized early that we couldn’t offer everything to everybody,” explains Tim Dietzler, Agricultural Fieldman for the MD of Rocky View. “We tried to encourage groups to form to the level they felt comfortable with their own leadership, while we provided support.” As the groups moved forward, they relied on the MD for information, speaker suggestions and support where needed.
“Our biggest successes are with the groups that continue to take ownership and control; these remain active and functional,” says Dwight Tannas, Agricultural Fieldman/Watershed Coordinator for the MD of Bighorn. “The really successful groups are often located in very visible locations (e.g. upstream of a large city like Calgary), where proactive measures were initiated years ago.” One long-standing successful watershed group is the Ranchers of Jumping Pound, supported jointly by both Bighorn and Rocky View.
“This group of ranchers really saw the need to do something and to be leaders by example and doing things right,” says Tannas. All of the ranchers are on the creek, and take ownership and pride in their management practices and initiatives. “The fact that they are all ranchers is significant, in that they understand and trust each other,” adds Dietzler.
The group formed to look at ways they could increase protection of their creek. The first step was to reassess what they were doing on their ranching operations that might impact the creek. “The natural step was the Alberta Environmental Farm Plan program, and they moved into that as a self-assessment through a group workshop,” explains Dietzler. “A number of the members had already implemented beneficial management practices (BMPs), so the interaction and sharing of their successes was really helpful.”
The next step was to develop and focus on BMPs that were right for each individual operation. “They have evolved from a watershed group to a community group based on a watershed, and are now looking at other issues such as the potential impact of oil and gas development,” says Dietzler. “The group continues to determine their own destiny and make it work on their own.”
There are other groups that tend to be more adversary rather than a working group, and tend not to be as successful. “These groups rely on getting attention through having a voice and getting in the media, that although may have a place, makes it difficult to support them,” says Tannas. Often the membership of the group includes others who are not landowners, and who don’t take real ownership. “My role is to help them bring their focus back to doing specific projects, and one of the groups is now looking at riparian health assessment with the Cows and Fish Program.”
As a result of their efforts, both MD’s are seeing practice change in their areas. “Awareness change is one of the hardest things to measure, but we certainly are seeing trends that people are becoming more aware,” explains Tannas. “We’re seeing a phenomenal change in attitudes towards water quality and riparian health, and pasture management.” Tannas notes that they are also seeing a move to working more one-on-one with individuals, rather than as a group. “We work with them to help find the practices that work best for their operations, and to access funds that can help them implement practice change.”
In the MD of Rocky View, AESA funds are supporting a full-time Agricultural Engineer BMP Specialist rather than a watershed coordinator. Murray Green is the specialist and his role is to meet with landowners and to encourage them to work through the Alberta Environmental Farm Plan process. Then he assists them on their individual farm or ranch to determine what BMPs are most suitable for their operation and to help them with implementation. “Although we’ve moved away from group-related support to more individual efforts, we continue group support in a more hands-off way.”
For more information, contact:
Tim Dietzler at (403) 230-1401 or email: tdietzler@gov.mdrockyview.ab.ca
Dwight Tannas at (403) 673-3611 or email: dwight.tannas@mdbighorn.ca
Murray Green at (403) 230-1401 or e-mail: mgreen@gov.mdrockyview.ab.ca |
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