Who we are, what we do and more about us…
Mission Statement
"Helping landowners and the community, to help themselves, to sustain natural resources with the help of others in Perth County".
The goals of the Council reflect its strong vision towards land stewardship.
Goals:
1. To achieve and maintain a healthy and sustainable environment that will contribute towards both the viability of agriculture and natural resources in Perth County, as well as the social and economic well being of its residents.
2. To engage members of our Perth County community in Natural Resource stewardship. This will be accomplished by bringing community members together to advocate and implement resource stewardship on private lands. This represents a sharing of responsibility between landowners, land interest groups and numerous other community partners.
3. To encourage and educate individuals and community groups to recognize that they have common interests and often share values such as promoting responsible land care, sustaining natural resources and working for a healthier environment.
4. To involve these various people in meaningful stewardship projects.
Stewardship Principles (What we believe)
Further to the basic Ontario Stewardship guidelines the PSN has attempted to follow this set of guiding stewardship principles as we deliver our local program. These are:
§ support and enable "stewardship leaders"
§ work with the diversity of groups found within Perth County and across Ontario
§ The PSN to function primarily as a facilitator to co-ordinate and then support connections between various people involved with environmental and resource stewardship.
§ That the PSN involve both formal and informal multifaceted education through a variety of mediums (Internet to neighbours speaking over the fence).
§ promote the stewardship ethic (including spiritual connections) on both private and public lands
§ address obvious environmental and resource problems (avoid falling into the trap of conducting more studies to determine the obvious)
§ track and assess stewardship initiatives (measure changes in stewardship ethic and impact of projects)
§ test our relevancy for existing and future stewardship directions
§ Provide meaningful recognition to people, part of which relates to establishing and maintaining a "Landowner Stewardship Registry" accessible to others. This aspect has manifested itself as the Land Stewardship Demonstration Catalogue, which is now spreading across Ontario.
§ Function in a complimentary fashion to existing programs (as we work together this prevents duplication of efforts by partners).
§ PSN to function like a network (which facilitates/brokers stewardship information, co-ordination, planning and contacts)
§ Wise resource stewardship can and should be economically viable and sustainable
§ the environment and economy can work better together
§ Local business and industry have a role to support environmental and resource stewardship initiatives in terms of partnering, in-kind and financial contributions.
§ leave room for local creativity
§ value natural resources
§ Recognize the important role that volunteers play in forwarding resource stewardship and "value" this labour adequately.
What we try to do.
The Ontario Stewardship program guidelines as well as these previous set of guiding principles have allowed the PSN to function within the Perth County community in the following ways:
§ able to work with "sparks of interest" within local neighbourhoods
§ lead community resource stewardship facilitation
§ provide; information, education and networking
§ ability to pull community interest together and rekindle local stewardship action/activities
§ function as a forum
§ empower local community groups
What we have accomplished.
As one of the thirty nine local stewardship councils across southern Ontario we have since 1996 evolved through the various stages of growth and development including; establishment, increasing awareness and profile in our community, nurturing community contacts and networks and developing many ongoing and new projects annually.
Please reference some of our annual reports from over these years. Our accomplishments include:
- Fostering a stewardship ethic and actions in individuals, landowners and community groups.
- Planted trees with community members
- Engaged and supported volunteers with their stewardship projects.
- Completed and developing new stewardship projects.
Supporting the communities ongoing long term stewardship activities
Please see the attached Perth Stewardship Network - Annual Reports: