This program brings together sound science and sound business principles in a solution to conflict between development and environment. Through the establishment of a reproducible, self-sustaining restoration and monitoring program for damaged habitat, mitigation sites and even backyards, Watershed Wealth will offer developers, homeowners, local government and others responsible for sensitive properties, an affordable means of responding to environmental concerns and regulations. The program will allow the careful harvest of high-value species as a means to attract landowner interest and partially defray the cost of restoring, maintaining and monitoring habitat including sensitive and endangered ecological systems.
Although there is growing encouragement and requirement to restore habitat there currently is no place a landowner, developer or contractor can go to get all the necessary information. The regulatory environment is confusing to say the least. There is little coordination between provincial and federal bureaucracies so that something that is encouraged by one may be forbidden by another. Local planning authorities are tasked with enforcing rules but have little help to offer when it comes to plant selection, sources and methods. This creates delay and inefficiency as each landowner, developer or contractor researches details or copes with regulatory conflicts. We have found on pilot projects that in a professional environment with a specific situation in mind, bureaucrats from various agencies can resolve conflicts and mutually support well-planned projects
The Watershed Wealth Program offers developers a consistent, low-cost solution to a major challenge which benefits the economy, environment and education while establishing a positive public perception. Well conceived and executed environmental projects almost always result in increased property values. The program is not primarily intended to develop new technologies, regulations or markets but to make new kinds of organizational connections between those that exist. This holds the promise of contributing to the sustainability of both the economy and the environment without compromising rigorous scientific oversight.
This program has the potential to increase public awareness and "buy-in" to habitat restoration as well as creating a significant number of new jobs. The training provided to delivery agents and their employees/volunteers will contribute to a wider understanding of the function and importance of riparian areas. Niche branded, habitat friendly products will further disseminate the conservation message while allowing consumers to contribute to ecological sustainability through their choice of these products. This approach will help reverse the idea that the only economic value of sensitive areas involves their degradation.
The commitment of the program to scientific guidance and review will enhance cooperation between landowners, restoration proponents and regulatory bodies and provide a venue for discussing and harmonizing contentious habitat issues. Access to project sites for maintenance and harvest will allow closer, more widespread and more consistent ecological monitoring. Watershed Wealth addresses the increasing rate of wildcrafter damage to private and public lands by providing closer monitoring and management and by providing stable jobs and training. The program is suitable for many diverse land ownership modalities and regulatory regimes in urban as well as rural areas. It could allow landowners to qualify for "agricultural" designation with the attendant tax and regulatory advantages and decrease pressure to remove land from the ALR.
There is a well-established, multi-tiered market for the commodities which will be produced. There currently is a worldwide shortage of medicinal plants and the Canadian Federal Government is encouraging growers to enter this market. There is a booming market for local and sustainable foods as well as "functional foods" (nutraceuticals.) There also is a large market for ornamental plant material, with salal as an example of just one local native species that is in great demand.
Like the off-the-shelf monitoring station, this is a set of ideas that can be plugged into existing market, capital, operational and regulatory sockets.