Notice
The Canadian Community Monitoring Network has evolved into the Citizen Science Network.
An electronic hub for the network has been created at www.citizenscience.ca. The site
has a directory of community-based monitoring and citizen science organizations from across Canada,
as well as a rich toolkit of relevant resources, and an on-line listing of events.
Citizen science monitoring groups are welcome to create a profile for the monitoring
initiative on the site and join the list serve serving the community.
Introduction
In September 2001, the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network Coordinating
Office (EMAN CO) and Nature Canada (formerly CNF)
set out to better understand the issues related to Community Based Monitoring
across Canada. This included the establishment or expansion of efforts in communities to provide
relevant science for policy and management decisions. The result was the initiation of the
Canadian Community Monitoring Network (CCMN) with funding from the
Voluntary Sector Initiative.
EMAN CO and NC commissioned a review of the experiences many organizations and agencies have had through their various approaches to community engagement. The result of this background research was the development of a model for how such engagement could best be accomplished.
Twelve regional coordinators were hired to engage thirty-one diverse communities across Canada to test and refine different approaches to implementing CBM. Each coordinator used a range of personally tailored, context specific approaches accompanied by a suite of tools outlined in the CBM Tool Box to identify and address local concerns. The lessons learned from their experiences were used to refine the CCMN Model for Community Based Monitoring.
Our pilot project explored 31 approaches on how to implement demand-driven ecosystem monitoring for communities and to create local capacity for action toward sustainability. Work in these communities also examined how CBM can contribute to nationally standardized data sets and our ability to manage policy and research in an increasingly responsive and adaptive manner at local, regional and national scales.
The primary goals of the CCMN pilot project were:
- to use Community Based Monitoring information to better inform policy and decision-makers,
- to discover the best approaches for engaging entire communities in monitoring activities,
- to develop, test, and refine a model for nationally coordinated community-based monitoring initiatives, and
- to build local capacity to collect, deliver, and use ecological information to facilitate sustainable decision-making.
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The CCMN pilot aimed to create the infrastructure for Canada’s first Community Based Monitoring network. Were they successful? Link here to find out. The model, factors for success and lessons learned from the CCMN pilot provide a resource to any community interested in environmental monitoring.
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