Welcome to the Watersheds Canada Resource Library!
Here you will find a comprehensive collection of free educational resources dedicated to helping rural shoreline property owners, families, municipalities, lake groups, and educators protect their lakes and restore natural habitat. Explore guides, best practices, case studies, lesson plans, and tools to become a freshwater protector. All resources are freely shareable so please include them in a newsletter, on social media, or printed for a community booth!
Funding support thanks to Peterborough K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation, and S.M. Blair Family Foundation.
The importance of community
This blog post celebrated the launch of our Freshwater Stewardship Community in 2022. It discusses the many benefits provided by collaboration and community-building, and even provides some speaker highlights from the first year of this program.
The Importance of Dark-Sky Reserves for Wildlife and Ecosystems
Light pollution is excessive or misdirected artificial light. It is stealing our starry nights, posing substantial threats to wildlife and our own well-being, and wasting energy and money. This has spurred a global push for ‘Dark-Sky Reserves’ — sanctuaries free from light pollution. Read this blog post to find out why these areas are so crucial for both nature and people!
The Importance of Wetland Plants for Dragonflies and Damselflies webinar with Dr. Mary Ann Perron
This is a handout from our webinar, "The Importance of Wetland Plants for Dragonflies and Damselflies". Odonata, including dragonflies and damselflies, are ancient insects with a biphasic lifecycle. They spend part of their life in the water as aquatic nymphs and part of their life in the terrestrial environment as adults. Dragonflies and damselflies make good bioindicators due to their widespread presence in freshwater habitats and their ability to live in various environmental conditions. Wetland plants are essential for Odonata, providing shelter, opportunities for thermoregulation, and a vertical substrate for emergence.
The King of Nature
Executive director Robert Pye shares his thoughts and personal anecdotes on our shared appreciation for birds, present in many facets of our life. This blog post was written for a past opportunity to win a hand-carved Belted Kingfisher, done by Canadian artist Mike Reader.
The Many Health Benefits of Nature
More and more, doctors are prescribing time outside as a means to alleviate a host of afflictions. Being outside can bring so many benefits to us, including providing us with vitamin D (which many people are deficient in). reducing stress and blood pressure, improving mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, and much more. Learn more about the powerful healing effects of being in nature in this blog post!
The Memory of the Mud webinar with Liz Factor, PhD
This is a handout from our webinar, "The Memory of the Mud: Paleolimnology reveals the impact of climate change on modern cyanobacterial bloom occurrence". Paleolimnology is a multidisciplinary science that uses aquatic sediments to track past changes in ecosystems. It can be used to study the past when current monitoring data does not exist. Understanding the past is key to putting environmental issues in context. The best way to control algal blooms is through prevention, which includes minimizing nutrient concentrations by reducing nutrient runoff from a catchment.
The only way to protect the shoreline is to plant - Natural Edge testimonial
Mike and Margo are two volunteers from the Thousand Islands Area Residents Association (TIARA) in Ontario. In this video, they share why they helped with a recent The Natural Edge restoration planting and why they think native plants are so important for protecting the health of shorelines and their local river.
The Problem with Plastics blog
Plastic has become central to the way humans package, ship, and consume products. This includes everything from electronics, to medications, to baby toys. Plastic was—and still is in some contexts—considered a miracle product which is waterproof, hard-wearing, and easily malleable. However, we have allowed this material with a myriad of unknown adverse health effects to accumulate in Earth’s oceans. Learn more about how this happens and why it's a problem in this blog post!
The Riparian Zone
Riparian areas are very important and valuable habitat for land-based and water-based wildlife. The shoreline area includes the first 30 metres of land around a lake or river. Native wildlife species like birds, mammals, insects, fish, reptiles, and amphibians depend on shoreline habitat for food, water, shelter, and breeding. The riparian zone supports 70% of land-based wildlife and 90% of aquatic species at some point in their lifetime.