Development of a longer-term "strategic and/or business plan"
Given the experience over the past decade, the LPBR has a good understanding of the ways in which it can help foster the functions of a biosphere reserve in the Long Point area. It might be helpful if the Executive, in cooperation with the membership in the LPBR and other people in the community, reviewed this experience in order to develop a longer-term plan that set some directions and priorities around which fund-raising efforts could be concentrated.
The planning process that would lead to such a plan might at the same time consider the following:
Reconfigure the biosphere reserve in order to include a terrestrial component on the adjacent mainland.
This would consider the anticipated longer-term involvement of the biosphere reserve with Carolinian forests and other issues associated with the Big Creek watershed, along with smaller adjacent ones (i.e. Dedrick, Fisherville, Lynn, Young's and Nanticoke Creeks) which flow into the Inner Bay of Long Point. While this could be an extension in practice that would implictly identify a transition area / zone of cooperation, some sites within this area qualify as terrestrial core areas, especially the 491 ha Backus Woods, and possibly other sites now maintained by the Long Point Basin Land Trust. It seems timely to take up this question given the LPBR experience in working with other agencies and organizations on forest restoration issues. Once some locally-acceptable decisions have been taken on this question, including specification of terrestrial core and buffer areas, formal recognition of the change should be sought from UNESCO/MAB following the standard procedures.
Pursue the design and implementation of a monitoring program for the biosphere reserve.
Elements for a Long Point Country Monitoring Framework have already been identified, and some related issues discussed. While conceptual and technical issues will always remain, a somewhat pragmatic approach may be possible. It could focus on just a few key things that are of local interest, for example, stressors on the valued components of the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. On-going work would be related to these to the extent possible, and then in the context of "adaptive management", some best practices from monitoring being developed elsewhere, including other biosphere reserves, could be introduced as time goes on. One goal would be to prepare periodic "state-of-the-environment" reports for the local community.
Adoption of public information and communication as an integrating theme for the LPBR.
This could be directed by a theme of ecosystems and sustainable resource use to reflect the need to maintain a "big picture" overview of matters of interest or concern for the whole Long Point area. Monitoring would feed into this. Studies, such as the one on landscape change over time, would inform it. Information about lake level fluctuations, aquatic ecosystems and climate change could extend it. This role would be strengthened by the LPBR's "forum" function that brings people together from time-to-time to help foster the "horizontal networks" of informal communication and cooperation for certain issues where more concentrated attention seems desirable. There is considerable interest in having more information about the biosphere reserve among the numerous visitors/campers in the area.
Follow-up on "eco-tourism" possibilities.
The CBRA collaborative project on eco-tourism revealed the potential for adding this component to the community economy in environmentally-responsible ways. It would build on the strong commitment to heritage values in the community, and also help strengthen the "presence" of the biosphere reserve on the economic sustainability component of what biosphere reserves are also expected to encompass. This could become the basis of a distinctive interpretive program for visitors to the LPBR.
Footnotes for this Section
(1). The other area was Green Bay, Wisconsin, which had experienced considerable degradation but was showing some signs of recovery resulting from environmental regulatory actions. The GLER approach there became a prototype for "remedial action plans" being implemented for 42 "areas of concern" identified under provisions of the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
(2). George R. Francis, A.P. Lino Grima, Henry A. Regier, and Thomas H. Whillans. 1985. A Prospectus for the Management of the Long Point Ecosystem. Ann Arbor: Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Technical Report No. 43.
(3) George Francis, a member of the GLER group, had been appointed Chair of the Working Group on Biosphere Reserves of Canada/MAB in November 1980. This fostered the connection between Long Point and the biosphere reserve concept.
(4) A member of the former Steering Committee and Executive Committee looked back on this as a time when "it struggled with isolation, uncertainty and antagonism, seeking its soul, developing a constitution" (information tabled at the Seville conference, March 1995).
(5) Exemplified in the following reports: Canada MAB. 2000. Landscape Changes at Canada's Biosphere Reserves. Toronto: Environment Canada; LPBR. 2000. Habitat Restoration Project in the Long Point World Biosphere Reserve. Report for the Canada Trust Friends of the Environment Foundation; and James P. Hamilton, Graham S. Whitelaw and Adam Fenech. 2000 Mean Annual Temperature and Total Annual Precipitation Trends at Canadian Biosphere Reserves, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (forthcoming).
(6) To declare possible bias, George Francis was Chair of the Board for Bird Studies Canada when this was written.
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