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Highlights
A river in good hands
The local involvement of community groups constitutes a vital link in the rehabilitation of the St. Lawrence. In order to take stock of this involvement on the part of grassroots groups since the early 1990s, more than a hundred individuals–players involved in community action associated with the St. Lawrence, and government partners in the St. Lawrence Plan (then known as St. Lawrence Vision 2000)–came together for three days at Mont-Sainte-Anne, near Quebec City, in September 2001.
Le Saint-Laurent, un fleuve entre bonnes mains[The St. Lawrence River—in good hands] forum, organized by Stratégies Saint-Laurent, an agency responsible for coordinating the ZIP (area of prime concern) committees, was also intended to identify a shared vision of future community involvement to benefit the river. And, above all, the goal was to promote better networking among groups by allowing exchanges of information and experiences. According to the organizers, this last goal was the one crowned with greatest success.
The three days of discussions resulted in the adoption of more than 80 recommendations, focussing mainly on the three St. Lawrence Vision 2000 community programs: the ZIP program, the Community Interaction Program, and the Biosphere ObservAction Network. These recommendations concerned funding, management and development, as well as support for the agencies within these programs.
About a dozen major consensus positions were also identified by the exercise, including the need for adequate funding of the groups, the importance of including regional priorities in government planning of the St. Lawrence Plan, the relevance of programs such as Community Interaction, and the need for communication among the partners and with the general public.
Date modified: 2008/08/05 – Important Notices
