With new all-weather roads, transmission lines, and mines planned for Ontario’s Far North, ecological monitoring and baseline information collection will be critical to help communities understand the impacts of changes to the water, land and wildlife. Our new report, Watching, Listening, and Learning to Understand Change, explains that communities need to be empowered to track these changes along with the changes being brought about by a rapidly changing climate through Community-Based Monitoring (CBM). The report outlines the many benefits of -- and key approaches to -- developing CBM programs and includes case studies from across Canada and around the world.  With 34 communities and 40,000 largely First Nation people living in Ontario’s Far North, tracking the impacts of development, including mineral exploration, and climate change has never been more important.

Blog by Cheryl Chetkiewicz here.