St. Lawrence Plan
Since 1988, the St. Lawrence has been in very good hands. Under a renewable agreement between Canada and Quebec, four successive action plans have been undertaken by a dozen government partners (departments and agencies) and several collaborators from the private and community sectors, to restore a healthy river to the people. To this point, efforts have been fruitful. And the work continues!
First known as the St. Lawrence Action Plan (SLAP) during its first five years, the federal-provincial program then became the St. Lawrence Vision 2000 (SLV 2000) for 10 years, then the St. Lawrence Plan for a Sustainable Development (SLP) under the most recent renewal of the agreement for the 2005–2010 period. In each of these new phases, new elements have increased the value of the program and the scope of activity has expanded.
During the first phase—SLAP—the partners focused on four main fields of intervention: protecting water quality from toxic substances, conserving habitats and species, evaluating the status of the environment and ecosystems, and restoring disturbed areas. As part of these activities, both governments tried to use compatible data, sharing their information and pooling their resources, always with the intent of complementing one another and respecting their respective jurisdictions.
The major success in this first phase was clearly the 90% reduction in toxic liquid waste from the 50 factories most responsible for polluting the St. Lawrence. In terms of conservation, we succeeded in protecting 5,000 hectares of natural habitat and instigating response measures for six threatened species.
The second phase of the program—SLV 2000—continued the efforts begun with SLAP: 56 additional factories were added to the industrial toxic liquid waste reduction program and 7,000 additional hectares of wildlife and fauna habitat were protected. But in addition to that, we expanded the scope of partner action to include human health, agriculture and community involvement. From that moment forward, there would be an eco-systemic vision guiding action, a global approach in which the St. Lawrence was deemed to be a single entity and all its components considered as a whole.
Community involvement would turn out to be a particularly determining factor as things progressed. Thanks to a burgeoning network of partners in the field (ZIP committees – zone d’intervention prioritaire [area of prime concern]), a movement towards local assumption of responsibility spread throughout the area. Highly diverse initiatives, spearheaded by communities, were added to the list of government partner projects: shore clean-ups, construction of development infrastructures, protection of vulnerable species, decontamination of port areas, etc.
In the third five-year plan—still under the name of SLV 2000—the network of ZIP committees consolidated, the clean-up of urban and industrial effluents continued—this time with the help of SMEs. Agriculture, human health and the conservation of biodiversity were still a priority and new areas of action were added: shipping, at the express request of SLV 2000 community group partners, as well as the Monitoring the State of the St. Lawrence River program, which sought to understand changes in the ecosystem by using environmental indicators and by drawing an overall picture that will need continual updating.
This environmental monitoring has quickly become a flagship component of the agreement, but we are also very proud of the results achieved in the area of navigation: the Sustainable Navigation Strategy for the St. Lawrence, which would later serve as a model in the maritime world.
Lastly, in the fourth phase, the focus has been primarily on sustainable development, a concept that encompasses environmental, social and economic concerns. This is the reason for the name change to St. Lawrence Plan for a Sustainable Development.
The current agreement now includes six areas of action: ecological integrity (more or less the old field of habitat and species conservation), agriculture, navigation, community involvement and awareness (with a youth component) and Monitoring the State of the St. Lawrence River, all continued from previous phases. To this has been added the ambitious Integrated Management of the St. Lawrence (IMSL) project; its aim is to implement a new form of governance for the St. Lawrence. It is a permanent process based on concerted efforts by all decision-makers, users and civil society, which will permit planning and better harmonization of the protection measures and the use of this important ecosystem’s resources. We would like to implement the Integrated Management of the St. Lawrence by the end of the current phase of the agreement, in 2010.Date modified: 2008/04/30 – Important Notices
