I offer this comment with…

I offer this comment with long-standing interactions with the Conservation Authority (CA) system in Ontario - first as a seasonal summer student during highschool and university and now as a professor of environmental science.

The CAs play a key role in watershed management for the benefit of people and nature. Watersheds are logical planning units hence the CAs are organized in a manner to help them deliver on their core mission. I read the proposed changes with interest. As with anything, there is always room for improvement and efficiency but such changes need to be made with care and with direct engagement/involvement with key informants including the CAs themselves. The development of more standardized systems that create more consistency across the province makes good sense notwithstanding the need to ensure opportunity for regional nuance. My real concern comes from what appears to be a rather arbitrary lumping of CAs. Are there opportunities to lump? YES. But again, that needs to be done with care and thought. The spatial scale of our province and its watersheds is substantial so lumping will lead to a diffusion of effort and support for watershed management and protection. About 15 yrs ago the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources stepped back from stewardship activities (e.g., working closely with landowners and community groups to DO conservation work) and the CAs have really excelled in filling that void (noting the CAs did that work before - now they are the only govt body doing such work). If I want to organize a community stream cleanup or work to plant trees along a stream or do fish habitat improvements in a local lake or remove invasive plants from a local wetland, the GO TO group to contact for guidance and support is the local CAs. The number "7" seems arbitrary for the number of CAs... the number should be dictated by what makes sense in terms of system function, watershed processes, and good governance. As always, the devil is in the details. For example, amalgamating several CAs and then consolidating all of their capacity in a single office while removing other offices that are currently spread across different watersheds would reduce the access of citizens to CA supports (and stewardship).

I would suggest that the following actions be undertaken...

1. Commit to work WITH the CAs and key informants to identify opportunities for efficiencies and improvements. The current efforts are top down which is the kind of nonsense we have seen in the Trumpian government to the south. Meaningful improvements come from listening and collaboration - not from top-down arbitrary actions.

2. Recognize that the CAs are the front line stewardship organization in Ontario and ensure that any efforts to change how the CAs function acknowledges that and ensures that changes retain that essential role.

3. Revisit the lumping of CA boundaries to better reflect a scale that is logical and would ensure that CAs have a physical footprint and capacity to do stewardship work locally - not 300 km away from where stewardship work could take place.

4. If I could summarize my comments... SLOW DOWN. Let's work together to come up with a plan. Create a working group involving reps from the CAs, municipalities, external bodies (e.g., university sector, NGO sector, community groups) and task them with coming up with a process and plan for improving the CAs in a logical and responsible manner. There is no need to rush something that is so important.