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Workshop on the prioritization of issues for future forums

The objective of the workshop was to choose three to six priorities from the orientations set out in the SLAP or from other themes consistent with the established criteria so that they can be addressed during the next three forums. The fifth forum, in 2015, will discuss the orientations of the next action plan. More than one theme can be addressed during the same forum.

The priorities must meet the following three criteria:

  • Be a global issue (affect several regions);
  • Fall under the responsibility of several entities, and thus potentially be an integrated management issue;
  • Strike a geographical balance so that the issues are equally divided between the River and Estuary and the Gulf (general concern to bear in mind in selecting the issues).

This issue prioritization activity required participants to work together to choose the orientations to be addressed during future forums. They were also able to add issues or strengthen the wording of those they felt were too general.

Approach

A list of nine issues stemming from external consultations conducted as part of the development of the SLAP was proposed to participants, who were invited to individually vote on three issues they felt were a priority. They had then the chance to collectively add forgotten or missing issues. Afterwards, they were asked to choose, as a group, four issues to propose together. Each group named a reporter who was in charge of communicating the selected issues to the activity leader.

The facilitator asked the reporters to present their first choice by inviting them to speak during the plenary session. During this time, the activity leader collected the proposals from each table and compiled the opinions. The results were weighted according to the priority given to the issues by each table (four points for the first, three points for the second, etc.). The issue with the most votes, regardless of rank, received a bonus 20 points. The results were compiled in an Excel sheet and then projected on the screen.
 

Themes in order of preference (score obtained after the workshop)

Identify, protect, restore and enhance areas of ecological significance: 38
Assess the impact of climate change on ecosystems: 18
Identify and enhance public access sites: 12
Promote sustainable management of water levels and flows: 11
Reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution: 9
Maintain and promote sustainable navigation: 9
Assess the presence and effects of toxic substances on the ecosystem: 8
Prevent the introduction and control the spread of invasive alien species: 4
Support sustainable use of fishery resources: 4
Biodiversity of the St. Lawrence*: 4
Governance: greater citizen participation*: 1
Geographical sea/freshwater balance*: 1

*These themes are recommendations made by participants.