Your Lakes. Your Rivers. Your Future.
Love Your Lake
Healthy Shorelines for Healthy Lakes
Waterfront cottage owners undoubtedly love their waterfront. Fond memories with family and friends are formed during cottage weekends. Love Your Lake is a shoreline evaluation and stewardship program that provides you with a property-specific report outlining voluntary actions that improve the health of your lake.
The Natural Edge
Shoreline Naturalization Program
Does your waterfront property have a Natural Edge? Waterfront properties are among the most beautiful, and valuable, places to live. We offer free site visits in our delivery region. We work with you to create a plan that works for you including selecting native species to plant based on factors like soil type and sun conditions.
Fish Habitat Programs
With the steady increase in development along Canada’s lake and rivers, critical fish habitat is being compromised and degraded. Watersheds Canada, in partnership with local organizations, is working to protect, enhance, and restore various freshwater fish habitats. Some of our projects include walleye spawning beds restoration, cold-water creek habitat enhancements, as well as adding woody debris back into our lakes with our brush bundle projects.
Freshwater Stewardship Community
Fostering community relationships and connecting with nature have become more difficult in this time of physical distancing. Watersheds Canada is excited to launch a new online freshwater stewardship community that will connect waterfront communities and individuals through free webinars, education resources, and networking opportunities.
Planning for our Shorelands
Responsibility for conserving shorelands in Ontario is shared across a diversity of stakeholders, including municipal councillors, planners, and lake-river associations. Watersheds Canada and its project steering committee are striving to produce a Best-Management Practices resource and forum related to shoreland policy and land-use which inform and unify municipalities in their efforts to conserve critical shoreland habitats. By doing so, we will be working towards collaborative, science-based solutions to the most persistent barriers to preserving ecosystems upon which both wildlife and people rely.
Lake Links
Lake Links is a one day workshop held every October. It attracts citizens and scientists to share ways we can help sustain our lakes and rivers. Individuals spread across five watersheds in Eastern Ontario (and beyond) attend this day-long event to learn, network, and see what’s new.
Blue Lakes
Blue Lakes is an eco-label program that provides a template for action and education. It is a label and a portfolio of tools, resources, and activities that can be tailored to your lake’s needs. The label also comes with access to real-time data about your lake. The Blue Lakes eco-label is provided in recognition of your commitment to stewardship and education.
The label is not provided because of a lake’s environmental conditions, but instead as a testament to your care.
Resources
If you are looking for information on planting native vegetation, maintaining a shoreline buffer, invasive species, engaging your community in stewardship projects or something else that’s impacting your shoreline and lake, chances are we have it here! Check out all of our tips, links, and tools for all of our great resources!