Practice imperfect: environmental decision-making and management in Lake Champlain’s northern watershed shared by Canada and the US

Lake Champlain’s watershed is shared by Vermont and New York in the US and Quebec in Canada. Strong identities and place-centered affiliations exist among citizen-based watershed groups and the underlying natural resource management regimes. Lake Champlain’s northern waters are a place both rich in citizen action and rich in nutrients. The northern waters include Missisquoi Bay, which is shared by Vermont and Quebec and is the most impaired part of the Lake. The actions of small place-based citizen groups working at a micro-level are contributing to watershed protection at a much larger scale. Environmental decision-making and management by Vermont, New York and Quebec is characterized by consensus reached through a continuous sequence of nonbinding, nonregulatory agreements (Stickney, 2008). These agreements support and revolve around engaged government agencies that are integrated with engaged place-based citizen groups, among other organizations. Since the historic 1988 Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Cooperation on the Management of Lake Champlain, 16 additional agreements have been signed—averaging nearly one per year. They range from joint declarations and watershed plans to phosphorus standards and toxic spill responses. They are renewable agreements bearing the support and participation of state, provincial, and federal agencies; local government; and businesses with a very strong citizen component (Stickney, 2008). In 2009 and 2010, four of these agreements are scheduled for renewal. This progression of cooperative agreements falls under the purview of the Lake Champlain Basin Program, a quasi-governmental, public-private partnership among Vermont, New York and Quebec that coordinates Lake Champlain’s long-term management plan, Opportunities for Action: an Evolving Plan for the Future of the Lake Champlain Basin. Use of nonbinding, renewable agreements more easily bridges differences among jurisdictions, whether interstate, intrastate or international. Additionally, these agreements can be updated more immediately as new information and technologies emerge. These agreements can be assembled more quickly than pursuing a traditional regulatory or legislative avenues. Due to this integrated decision-making model, UNESCO designated the Lake Champlain Basin as one of seven demonstration watersheds worldwide within its Hydrology, Environment, Life, and Policy (UNESCO HELP) program in 2005. In 2009, the basin was promoted into the third stage of the HELP program. Some natural resource management models may portray a pyramid to show top-down management practices utilized by natural resource managers at the top of the pyramid supported by a strong or a pyramid base of citizens. In the Lake Champlain Basin, an inverted pyramid with citizen input driving actions and practices by resource managers or an integrated quilt may be more accurate. In a quilt analogy, the resource management programs comprise a framework or base fabric. The place-based citizen groups, or patches, are what holds the quilt together and depict the character and flavor of the joint management practices. The separate pieces create layers of organization, and by overlapping, strengthen the fabric. This symbiotic relationship is influenced by strong connections to place.