Learning for Conserva tion and Revi talisation of Natural and Cultural Resources As an example of community outreach, several events were held in Greater Sudbury in 2010 to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity. Some events focused on high school students, others on elementary school students and others on the general public. Biodiversity Partners were invited to host information booths at the events that included lively and informative speakers and entertainers. A total of almost 2,000 people attended these events, bringing broad exposure to biodiversity issues and opportunities. Efforts to involve the community in volunteer monitoring of biodiversity will be ongoing. Engaging people with easy, relatively effortless activities – like watching birds at home feeders or identifying whether or not Whip-poorwills (a bird species) are calling around their properties at night – can be the start of an enduring relationship with volunteers that can lead to their involvement in more complex forms of community-based monitoring, such as Environment Canada’s Marsh Monitoring Program. Engaging and educating children and youth through local biodiversity-related activities will remain an important component of the Biodiversity Action Plan. In addition to all of the education opportunities identified above, the City has undertaken an Ugliest Schoolyard Contest since 2005, through the tireless efforts of a local volunteer and through multi-year corporate sponsorship by Xstrata Nickel and donations from numerous other local businesses. The Ugliest Schoolyard Contest has, thus far, provided a much-needed green makeover to 26 local schoolyards. To ensure that the efforts are long-lasting, the contest judging process insists that applications receive support from the school board, principal, teachers, students, parents and school maintenance staff. The schoolyard regreening efforts offer ample opportunities to raise awareness of local native plants and create habitats for wildlife. Biodiversity teaching opportunities will only increase as the naturalised schoolyard landscapes mature. The Greater Sudbury Biodiversity Action Plan will be integrated into the city’s land-use planning document, the Official Plan. The Biodiversity Action Plan also satisfies several objectives of Ontario’s Biodiversity Strategy, Canada’s Biodiversity Strategy, and, ultimately, the Convention on Biological Diversity. Conclusion The most important lesson learned through the decades of regreening work in Greater Sudbury is that partnerships with various groups and individuals in the community are critical. These partnerships take time to develop and nurture, but in the end are worth the effort since they help ensure that the community takes ownership of the recovery of its ecosystems. Partnerships with schools and post-secondary institutions are especially important to help leverage resources for monitoring, researching and learning about the best methods for ecological recovery. These partnerships also allow students to learn by doing and to gain insights that connect their actions to environmental health. By addressing the financial, operational, educational, research, and social aspects of ecological recovery, the Greater Sudbury Biodiversity Action Plan provides a holistic model for community renewal. Greater Sudbury has now shed its ‘moonscape’ image and is fully engaged in the next phase of its community-supported ecological recovery that will benefit this and future generations. The RCE project provides yet another important means of achieving multistakeholder collaboration aimed at achieving lasting ecological recovery that will enhance the sustainability of Greater Sudbury. 26 1
Traditional Knowledge and Biodiversity
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