Frontenac County a loser if stewardship council fades away

Jeff Green | Oct 11, 2012

Editorial by Jeff Green

It was several years ago now that Brett Colman, who was then working as a stewardship coordinator with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, appeared before North Frontenac Council.

He was there on a recruitment drive. Colman had just transferred to Kingston from southwestern Ontario and he was trying to find representatives for the Frontenac Stewardship Council from all corners of the county in order to bring it back from a moribund state.

Stewardship councils had been set up as a cost-cutting exercise by the ministry. Until budget cuts in 1995, ministry employees did the work of stewardship councils, providing information and resources to landowners who were interested in fostering a balance between their own land use and the long term viability of the rural ecosystem. Quite apart from the regulatory function of the ministry, which often puts the ministry in conflict with landowners, stewardship is all about cooperation and taking advantage of a common interest between individuals and governments in fostering a diverse and healthy rural landscape.

It took a while for the Frontenac Stewardship Council, which is a group of interested volunteers aided by a ministry employee, to get up and running. With the help of Colman, who took early retirement to work with his wife at Desert Lake Family Resort in Verona, and his replacement, Cam McCauley, the council has had active participation from members in all four Frontenac townships, with members from Frontenac Islands making extra efforts to get to meetings in Hartington or Sharbot Lake within the limitations of the ferry schedules.

Landowners from the Limestone, Canadian Shield, and Islands ecosystems have met together and talked about issues of concern across a vast and diverse territory. Slowly, through communications with county and township councils and staff, cottage associations, woodlot owners, farmers, and students, the Frontenac Stewardship Council has been working its way into the fabric of life in Frontenac County.

As we have chronicled in these pages, Frontenac County itself suffers from difficulties because of its landscape and political history as junior partner in its relationship to the City of Kingston. As the county prepares for its 150th anniversary in 2015, an opportunity to put its best foot forward as a modern, rural community of communities with a common future, the stewardship council was in line to be a key partner in some of the activities.

This is now in extreme doubt. With the Ministry of Natural Resources pulling away from the Stewardship Council program, the Frontenac Stewardship Council will be lucky to survive, and if it does it will likely be as part of a regional program.

As one of the pieces of Frontenac County's fragile public identity, the loss of the council is a loss for the county as a whole, and for all of us who live here.