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PROGRAMS
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Stewardship,
Public Awareness, and Education
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Stewardship,
Public Awareness, and Education
Goal: The goal of stewardship is to provide opportunities for
community-based groups or individuals to actively participate
in fish and stream conservation. Although stewardship requires
further definition relative to its overall purpose, the concept
instills caring and respect for aquatic resources and promotes
responsibility for uses that affect both resources and user
groups.
The goals of public awareness and education will be addressed
in part by stewardship programs but will also provide the basis
for an informed and knowledgeable understanding of aquatic ecosystems
at the community level.
Objectives: Projects within this program area are intended to
increase public awareness surrounding issues of aquatic ecosystem
health (i.e. the importance of aquatic biodiversity and man-made
disturbances that affect aquatic ecosystems). The role of the
stewardship program is to improve the public's understanding
of aquatic ecosystem issues, propose solutions to resolve outstanding
issues and improve communications to draw linkage between ecosystem
health and overall quality of human life (e.g. healthy watersheds,
healthy communities). Improved local communications will also
provide a feed-back mechanism for future project evaluation.
Activities: Stewardship, awareness, and education opportunities
can be achieved through a wide variety of watershed-based activities
that include monitoring, assessment, and restoration. Stewardship
activities could include local adopt-a-stream programs, stream
mapping, media news releases, storm drain marking programs,
annual awareness programs, issues related to private lands,
training and education related to restoration principles and
objectives, and other local community events to achieve its
program objectives. Stewardship roles will likely involve long-term
strategies. Awareness and educational roles can be developed
either as stand-alone projects or in combination with projects
from other program areas, and could range from immediate to
long-term in scope.
Delivery Mechanism: The stewardship program will be initiated
through a regional forum in September 1999 to offer interested
groups and individuals information on state of the art approaches
to watershed stewardship. The first forum would also provide
the opportunity for information exchange or networking between
local communities and offer extension services to those communities
requiring support during proposal development. The first forum
will also be designed to define specific goals, objectives and
criteria for the stewardship program. After this forum, a call
for proposals [i.e., Requests for Proposals (RFPs)] will be
issued to solicit specific projects that meet the identified
goals and objectives. Projects can be delivered through a variety
of local institutions that include schools, community groups,
local business, and government. Towards the end of the fiscal
year, a second forum involving the regional partnership is proposed
to allow information sharing on stewardship initiatives between
community groups. The purpose of this forum is to allow community
groups to provide an update on specific projects and build on
successful stewardship approaches.
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