Vol. 3, No. 4 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Fall 1999
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Coastal Network of the Gulf of Maine sees synergy for 2010By Coastal Network of the Gulf of Maine (CNet) Volunteer environmental monitoring in the Gulf of Maine watershed has come a long way in the past decade. In the early 1990s, approximately 50 community water quality monitoring groups worked in the region, mostly in Maine and Massachusetts. Today more than 150 diverse community environmental monitoring groups are at work Gulf-wide. Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the Gulf of Maine are now at least a decade old. They have shown they possess the scientific, administrative, and business skills required to get the job done. The evolution of NGO knowledge over the past decade has yielded many valuable lessons: Gulf-wide workshops and regional conferences help community groups pool resources and expertise; community monitoring efforts make important contributions to investigative work, data collection, local remediation, and public education; and a bit of seed money can be turned into tremendous cash and in-kind resources. Equipped with these lessons, CNet will tackle the coastal challenges of the twenty-first century. In particular, we anticipate that community monitoring will expand to include the significant areas of air quality and climate change. Perhaps our greatest challenge for the next decade is to bridge the philosophical gulf that sometimes exists between scientists, environmental managers, and citizens. We must further develop institutional arrangements for an integrated ecosystem approach to resource management decisions in the Gulf of Maine. These changes are on the horizon. CNet has begun sharing ideas with the Gulf of Maine Council on ways to further involve NGOs in advancing the Council's Action Plan - a logical step, as many organizations in CNet share common goals with the Council. While this is a challenging process for both sides, it is a worthwhile endeavor. Together, our diverse resources can help improve the health of the Gulf. To initiate greater community NGO cooperative work with the Council, CNet welcomes an expanded dialogue of the Council's Action Plan in public venues and community fora. Also, CNet envisions success for future cooperative initiatives between the Gulf of Maine research community and community NGOs, such as the Gulf-wide environmental monitoring workshop being planned by the Regional Association for Research on the Gulf of Maine (RARGOM) for the spring of 2000. CNet predicts that in the next decade, there will be a synergy among coastal stewardship NGOs, researchers, and government based on the common goal of wise use, restoration, and protection of the Gulf of Maine watershed. After all the Bay of Fundy-Gulf of Maine is home to us all. CNet is a Gulf-wide network of community environmental monitoring groups. Visit their web site at http://fox.nstn.ca/~carp/ CNet for more information. |
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