Those who live or cottage in the McKenzie Lake area realize how special it is and a natural treasure. Its undeveloped, natural shorelines, abundant fish and wildlife, surrounded by crown land forest is for many of us our sanctuary. But there are simple and obvious questions to ask -- who will protect this treasure, what needs to be and when is it time to take action? This plan is the McKenzie Lake Property Owners Association - Environmental Committee's answer to those questions.
The planning process relies heavily on the involvement of the community around McKenzie Lake. Over the years many input and opinion surveys have been conducted, meetings held to determine values, priorities and goals. This began back in 2006 with the first meetings and surveys conducted by Rhonda Ursulak (now Rhonda Sage-Buffit) who lead the environmental commitee and spearheaded the need for a lake plan. The outcome of this initial meeting and survey identified the concerns and interests of the community. This led to involving Randy French to help guide the data collection and assimilation of the information required to begin to understand what it means to be stewards for the environment around us. A second follow up survey to re-affirm the values of the community was performed in 2018, 10 years after the initial survey, only to confirm the core values have not changed at all. The environmental committee began efforts in 2021 to raise money for a full water analysis of McKenzie Lake. The community rallied to donate over $16,000 towards the report by end of 2022. In 2023 the final report was released. Information has been sought from government agencies, the Township, locals with considerable historical knowledge, general interest groups and in the final stages in 2023, indigenous community involvement was requested and accepted.
This lake plan, which should be considered a stewardship plan, is not complete, and likely never will be as it's an ongoing journey. It is however a committment from the property owners to continually pledge to uphold the core values and principles through monitoring and action. The aim of this lake plan is to:
- Identify what makes McKenzie Lake and surrounding area a unique and desirable place to live, vacation and visit;
- Identify the challenges in maintaining it's current state and character;
- Establish a baseline for ongoing monitoring, collection of data, and advocacy for the healthy, sustainable, and natural developmenet of the McKenzie Lake area;
- Promote and educate property owners, vacationers and visitors of the McKenzie Lake area how to help sustain the environmental, social and cultural health and viability of the McKenzie Lake area;
- Recommend actions for sustaining the enivornmental, social and cultural health of the area; and
- To provide an infrastructure model for the on-going planning, education and action; 'a living document' that can and should be regularly and continually reviewed, revised and enhanced to reflect the changing needs of the McKenzie Lake community.
How to use (interact with) this Lake Plan.
The McKenzie Lake Environmental Committee wanted the lake plan to be an interactive, continually updating and imersive experience. It also recognized that not everyone will be interested in the entire plans content, but may want to focus in on certain topics of interest (Loons, or water quality for example). For this reason the digital online platform was choosen as the main and 'active' publication of the lake plan. The McKLPOA.ca website has several sections which both members can actively contribute to, as well as serve as a data archive function for reference. This allows the lake plan "spread its wings" so to speak and have links and connections to member contributions and data submitted throughout the site.
For example, the is a 'talk' section on our site which is forum based. Regular Secchi Disk readings are recorded here, along with loon sightings and findings, and other member observations. The 'plan' will link to these areas as part of the overall data and historical archive collection.
We also have added a 'Learning Management System' to the site. Here we offer courses, information sessions and other self paced learning opportunities.
It is our belief that over time, these sections will grow with useful, real world (citizen science) content significantly adding value and depth to the lake plan. This is our first step in building a tool that facilitates two of our actionable items.
From all of us on the Environmental Committee, please enjoy and contribute to our stewardship.
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