FINCH – South Nation Conservation’s (SNC) Board of Directors has approved new membership to broaden the stakeholder engagement on its Forest Conservation Working Group. The SNC Board represents 16-member Municipalities in Eastern Ontario.
This enhanced Committee of 14 new members are scheduled to meet approximately six times between March and June 2018 to provide recommendations to SNC’s Board and Municipalities on measures to increase and/or protect forest cover. The new group’s membership will include First Nations, municipal representatives, land developers, woodlot organizations and community members working with three farm producers appointed by the previous forest cover agricultural working group.
“The goal is to get people to collaborate on ways to work together to maintain forest cover throughout the region,” explained John Mesman, SNC’s Communications Team Lead. “The group will be brought up to speed on past and current studies and will review feedback provided from the agricultural community.”
Work on the topic of declining forest cover began when SNC struck it’s Agricultural Forest Cover Working Group in 2017 to produce a report on preliminary recommendations from an agricultural perspective. This group consisted of 22 members, of which nearly all were local farmers, appointed by their local federations of agriculture, farmers union and Christian Farmers’ Federation.
SNC is actively recruiting membership-at-large to provide feedback from a community-based perspective. A call for applications is out, closing on Fri., March 9, 2018.
“We’re hoping to find people eager to come to the table and work together,” said Mesman, adding, “We need community-driven solutions and enhanced program ideas.”
Persons interested can visit nation.on.ca/forest-cover to access information on the Forest Conservation Initiative or to download an application form. The SNC-produced 2016 Forest Cover and Trends Analysis Report can also be found online.
“The initiative aims to bring people from different industries together to discuss ways to conserve forest cover,” added Mesman. “It’s our local environment, we’re in it together.”
