The Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) wants the province to retain the existing governance structure for conservation authorities and wants to see an inter-ministerial approach on integrated watershed management.
The proposals were contained in the MVCA board of directors’ comments to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry on the discussion paper Conserving Our Future: Proposed Priorities for Renewal.
The authority’s comments, presented in a letter to Mapleton council at its Aug. 23 meeting, included a recommendation to add a purpose statement to the Conservation Authorities Act that confirms the integrated watershed management mandate of authorities.
“Conservation authorities are the logical delivery agent for integrated watershed management at the local level. Conservation authorities could deliver programs that help to meet provincial watershed management objectives,” the letter states.
Other recommendations include:
– that an inter-ministerial committee on integrated watershed management be established comprised of Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, OMAFRA and MNRF;
– that the existing governance structure be retained (“Municipalities provide the bulk of the funding for conservation authorities and therefore should continue to appoint directors to serve on conservation authority boards,” the MVCA states); and
– the provincial government should develop a new funding partnership with conservation authorities.
“There’s a couple places in these changes where they’re talking about funding. I would hope that would refer to more provincial funding for the conservation authorities rather than municipal,” commented councillor Dennis Craven.
“I believe that’s what the plan is,” explained councillor Michael Martin. “Just reading this over I thought it would be nice to chat this over with our representatives from conservation.”
A recommendation to receive the correspondence for information was approved unopposed.
