Temagami Stewardship Council meets

Temagami Stewardship Council
News Release

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The March 26th meeting of the Temagami Stewardship Council was held at the Temagami Community Centre since renovations are still underway at the Temagami Welcome Centre.

Chairman Gaye Smith introduced Marion Russell as the new recording secretary. In the action items, it was reported that the TSC is now registered with Charity Village, which is an online facilitator of charitable donations. The charitable status reports and incorporation reports have been updated and an application has been made to ProLink to act as an insurance provider.

In correspondence, the Chair reported on an interview with CTV News conducted earlier in the day with Cindy Males. He stated that his message is that the “model” for Stewardship in the North is going to be different from the “model” developed for stewardship in Southern Ontario. Northern stewardship will be different because the community concerns are the fishery, the water and the recreational use of land and water. Southern concerns revolve around practices on private land, natural resources and an environment already overused and in distress. Stewardship can provide the opportunity for the local people to be involved in and have a voice in the management of the local natural resources and environment. As a stewardship, we have done this successfully and we question why the MNR would choose to sabotage rather than support our efforts.

The progress of the lengthy application to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for funding of the Septic System Assessment Project was explained and the Directors decided to proceed with the detailed application process. It was reported that the winners of the Trophy Live Release Contest had been contacted and the trophy mounts are being created at Advanced Taxidermy in Toronto. It was also reported that there is considerable interest in producing a bathemetric map of Lake Temagami in the summer of 2007. The partners, who are the Temagami First Nation, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Municipality of Temagami and the Temagami Stewardship, are scheduled to meet in early April to plan the project together.

Mark Johnson provided an updated financial report and emphasized again that the TSC is in need of financial support.

During a discussion about developing a response to the letter previously received from MNR, North Bay, which officially expelled the TSC from the Ontario Stewardship Program, the Directors decided to send a detailed response questioning the MNR direction in this matter. The TSC has been asking since February for a meeting with the Minister, David Ramsay, to discuss the demeanor of the MNR.

The Water Quality / Workshop and Dinner is again to be scheduled for the end of May. This dinner is a way of showing the appreciation of the TSC to volunteers who conduct water testing during the summer as part of the Lake Partners Program.

The ongoing list of spring activities was next on the agenda. The TSC is encouraging volunteers to conduct the observation of walleye spawning sites on Lake Temagami. Potential walleye spawning sites should be observed over a number of evenings as soon as the water temperature reaches 6 degrees Celsius. Observing one site over a number of evenings provides more valuable information than observing different sites. Spawning observations provide valuable trends through time information on the health of spawning populations.

The Chairman presented the preliminary report on the FWIN Netting Study, which was conducted on the entirety of Lake Temagami by the MNR and Laurentian University in 2006. The group was cautioned that these results are very preliminary since these studies are not complete. Laurentian University will provide a detailed explanation of the study at the TSC Annual General Meeting in July.

The next meeting of the TSC is scheduled for Monday, April 30th, 2007 at the Welcome Centre.

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