When you walk through the streets of any major city in Alberta, you may see a bright-yellow fish painted on the storm drains reminding ‘only rain should be going down the drain.’ Celebrating its 24th anniversary, The Yellow Fish Road (YFR) program is Trout Unlimited Canada’s premiere environmental education program. This Alberta-grown educational phenomenon has reached more than 65,000 people in schools, community groups and day camps, motivating positive environmental ...
In an ongoing effort to educate shoreline residents and communities on lake ecology and riparian health, the Living by Water program encourages responsible lake stewardship through promoting shoreline management. Advisors work one-on-one with residents to improve the condition of their watershed by evaluating their personal impact on water quality, shoreline health, and fish and wildlife habitat. To date, the program has reduced the use of fertilizer, pesticides, phosphate-containing ...
Shirley Pickering’s leadership on progressive water management and stewardship has no peers in the private, volunteer, or public sectors. She has built community and agency capacity and then crafted strategies that address intractable watershed issues with solutions that last because they meet provincial needs and are based on community consensus and technical competency. Shirley’s accomplishments stand in marked contrast to her deliberate, modest and self-effacing manner. She gives freely of ...
Youth Wavemakers engages Alberta youth to take action on local and global water issues. Since 2008, this program has reached 20,000 youth and educators, who in turn have raised awareness with another 60,000 people in their communities on water issues. This increased awareness has catalyzed independent action in these communities through youth action projects. From reducing domestic water use to building rainwater storage tanks and retrofitting schools with water saving ...
The Southern Rockies Watershed Project is in its 10th year of watershed research and monitoring and focuses on climate, hydrology and stream ecosystem health. Their research activities span 80 square kilometres and nine watersheds and represent the largest and longest running forest hydrology research projects in Alberta. One judge said “to keep this going for ten years is remarkable.”
For more than 25 years, this volunteer based community water-testing program has been engaging Albertans in the collection of scientific data from their local lake or reservoir and working to ensure that Alberta’s water resources will not be the limiting factor in the health of our environment. The LakeWatch program is a critical component of Alberta’s Water for Life Strategy.