Stewards of the Strait
Posted on March 16th, 2006 by Christianne Wilhelmson, Georgia Strait Alliance

Georgia Strait Alliance has launched a free online pledge program for recreational activities on and around Georgia Strait and its adjoining waters.

The program, called Stewards of the Strait, is geared to anyone who enjoys recreational activities on or around the Strait. It's designed to encourage commitment to best practices among boaters, paddlers, beach walkers, birders, divers, sport fishermen, shoreline property owners, wildlife watchers and others who use these waters recreationally.

When you click on the Stewards of the Strait icon on our home page, you'll get information & options to take one or any number of pledges, depending upon your recreational interests. You can sign up for as many of them as are relevant for you, ie. whether you enjoy boating, paddling, bird watching, scuba diving, fishing, beach walking, or waterfront living, you'll find a different set of best practices for each of these, specific to that recreational activity.

Initiatives like Parks Canada's National Marine Conservation Area for the Strait are needed. But we can't rely on the NMCA to solve the problems. Even if it is established (which is still a long way off and by no means certain), the regulations that go with it may be less than adequate to protect marine wildlife and habitat and the monitoring and enforcement regime will likely be weak. So the NMCA can only be successful in terms of conservation if people support it by buying into its principles and adopt environmentally sound practices. That means that we need to encourage widespread public commitment to voluntary stewardship efforts, starting right now....which is what Stewards of the Strait is all about. We want to build a large and broad network of Stewards, so please take the pledges yourself and spread the word as you talk to collegues, friends and family.

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