Continuing justification for a biosphere reserve and appropriateness of the zonation.
Over the past decade, all levels of government having ownership or jurisdiction over different parts of the biosphere reserve have undergone budget and staff reductions, and currently see their main role as "holding actions" over their central responsibilities. At the same time there are now about 40 local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that concern themselves with conservation and wildlife; hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation; environmental protection; local land use and development; and local cultural heritage and tourism. Because of the wide recognition of the ecological significance of the Long Point area, local disputes may be readily joined by different provincial or national NGOs. The biosphere reserve serves to keep "horizontal" communications and cooperation across different sets of participant groups, and given the current organizational and political context, it has an even more significant role to play in the community now than when the concept of a LPBR was first explored almost 20 years ago. Some people in the community see the public forum role as the most important one for the biosphere reserve to play.
The original zonation for the biosphere reserve focused exclusively on Long Point, the Inner Bay, and the associated wetlands extending to the mainland shore. Given the complex organizational arrangements overlaying this area, the biosphere reserve did not try to include terrestrial components on the adjacent mainland. However, over the years people associated with the biosphere reserve have undertaken a number of activities related to forested ecosystems in rural townships adjacent to the Long Point complex. There is some interest in considering how this might be recognized formally through an application to UNESCO/MAB to add to the area of the biosphere reserve, and possibly include one or more protected forest areas as part of the "core areas" for it. Local consultations would have to be carried out before this step is taken.
Continuing local involvement.
As noted, there has been continuing local involvement, especially over the past decade. Membership in the LPBR has been maintained at levels above 200 people for the last few years. There are now over 50 people, most of whom are still resident and active in the local community, who have served terms on the Executive Committee for the biosphere reserve, and who remain supportive of it. As citizens, they reflect a cross-section of local business people, farmers, foresters, biologists, engineers, teachers, writers, and civil servants (acting in their individual capacity) from federal, provincial, regional and local municipal governmental bodies. A significant minority of them are retirees.
The thrust of local involvement depends on the particular skills and interests of people on the Executive Committee of the LPBR, and the amount of volunteer time they can devote to the biosphere reserve. As members of the committee complete their terms of appointment and others are recruited, there is sometimes a shift of activities from earlier priorities to new ones with a time lag in between.
Effectiveness of management plans
In the 1980s, the government agencies exercising jurisdiction over different components of the Long Point complex each had their own management plans for the areas they administered. With the "down-sizing" changes noted above, none of these plans have been formally revised or up-dated, but the more restricted program activities of agencies generally remain consistent with them.
There has been considerable work by NGOs to document natural features, land use changes, and human-induced stresses on ecosystems in the Long Point area, most notably, a multi-volume environmental folio produced in the mid-1990s at the University of Waterloo in cooperation with the biosphere reserve. In 1995, the biosphere reserve conducted an inventory of some 50 different monitoring activities undertaken in the Long Point area by different agencies and NGOs for their own purposes, and up-dated this again (with a map of locations) in 1999. Several initiatives have been taken to address questions about developing a comprehensive monitoring program that could make use of this background information while also tracking matters of local concern. No consensus about this has been reached. Unlike other biosphere reserves associated with national parks which have a statutory obligation to manage and monitor for "ecological integrity", there is no organization within the Long Point complex which is formally required to manage for ecosystem health, ecological integrity, or for sustainable resource use that might serve as the focus for a more extended collaborative effort. Nevertheless, the desirability of being able to develop "state-of-the-environment" reports for the area is generally recognized.
Science in the context of national and international programs
All research and monitoring in the biosphere reserve is directed towards the program objectives of the different groups undertaking it. Work on birds, which pre-dates the biosphere reserve but continues in co-operation with it, is particularly noteworthy(6). The Long Point Bird Observatory, established in 1960, is the oldest continuously operated bird observatory in North America. Bird Studies Canada (BSC), which is based within the biosphere reserve and operates the Observatory, also sponsors volunteer-based bird monitoring and research throughout Canada in collaboration with a number of different groups. This in turn is linked with international programs such as the "Important Bird Areas" program, a global initiative of Bird Life International, and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) sponsored by the Commission on Environmental Cooperation. Work funded by the Long Point Waterfowl and Wetland Fund (administered under BSC) contributes to some priority topics under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.
The biosphere reserve has taken several initiatives in cooperation with Environment Canada's Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN) to develop SI/MAB plots in the area (four to date). The Long Point complex itself has been one focus for assessing scenarios of climate change on Lake Erie, a study which was part of the Canadian climate change program, but this did not involve local participation. Some activities in the area, especially the Great Lakes marsh monitoring program administered by BSC, are linked to the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Otherwise, the biosphere reserve area has not been selected for field studies under UNESCO/MAB or other international programs, although its potential as a climate change monitoring site seems to be high.
The biosphere reserve and issues of sustainability
The biosphere reserve has addressed issues of local sustainability through, for example, repeating in 1993 a study which was first done in 1980 of perceptions of a representative group of people about the main stresses that are impacting upon the Long Point complex (and up-dating this again more informally in recent years); providing a forum for reasoned discussion of the decline of the sports fishery in the Inner Bay; sponsoring a Community Action Project (funded by Environment Canada) to identify conservation actions that could be taken locally ("green community"); and helping to reforest with native species some connecting corridors between isolated remanant Carolinian forest stands. The LPBR has looked into opportunities for additional involvement in community economic issues, notably in ecotourism, and has participated in consultations on the feasibility of some options.
While questions of core funding remain a pre-occupation of the Executive Committee for the biosphere reserve, some longer-term matters should be addressed in the context of fund-raising and looking ahead to the next decade.
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