Tag Archives: environment

Algae, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka cottage life, Port Carling, Stewardship, Volunteer, water, water quality

Muskoka and Global: Environmental Good News Stories.

Did you know that Gravenhurst Bay in Lake Muskoka is 4 to 5 times cleaner than it was 1970?
Did you know that everyone alive in the 70’s had toxic levels of lead in their blood?
Did you know that Muskoka has only half as many acid lakes as it once did?
Well, how about this then: if it wasn’t for the life in lakes, we would all be blind, deaf , stupid and dead.

Dr. Norman Yan
To be blunt; we would all be blind, deaf , stupid and dead if it wasn’t for the life in lakes.

From the Muskoka Watershed Council Lecture Series I have just finished editing and have just posted this video on the Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube page.
Dr. Norman Yan, an extremely engaging speaker, revisits some past environmental successes, what we have learned and the steps we need to take to solve today’s environmental problems.

Phosphorous is the conrolling factor in eutrophication.

Learn how the reduction of phosphorus resulted in a clean up in Gravenhurst Bay while the International Joint Commission was still debating whether its carbon or phosphorus that spikes algal growth? This local Muskoka cleanup helped convince the world that phosphorus is the cause of cultural eutrophication. This phenomena is of increasing concern as population grows and the climate heats up; after all, we learned from this lecture, that algae really love heat.

Current photo of lake in China where people swim in an algal bloom.
Current photo of lake in China where people swim in an algal bloom.

Revisit the change to unleaded gas which got the toxic levels of lead out of our blood. Dr. Yan also discusses the many benefits of the ban on DDT, as well as the immediate benefits of the recent Ontario ban of cosmetic pesticides and herbicides. Also be sure not to miss houses disappearing from view as the Sudbury environment improves over 40 years!

cottage life, Gravenhurst, Lake Muskoka, Muskoka cottage life, Muskoka Watershed Council, Stewardship, Volunteer, water, water quality

Muskoka. Our environment is far more than our economy.

From the Muskoka Watershed Council Lecture Series I have just finished editing and have just posted this video on the Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube page.

All of us should be familiar with the fact that in Muskoka, our environment is our economy; over half our GDP comes from tourism and cottaging. In this lecture, Peter Sale attempts to convince us that our environment is far more than our economy.
sale

Every year some 5 billion cubic metres of water pass through Muskoka – that’s 3 1/2 times the entire volume of Lake Muskoka. Half is evaporated or transpired by Muskoka’s forests and plants, the other half – some 2.5 billion cubic metres flows into Georgian Bay. As climate change affects Muskoka – producing warmer and wetter winters, but dryer summers with more intense storms – we may be trying to find ways to hold on to that water, just a little longer; maybe the beaver has a solution for us.

wetlands 5

Peter, who describes himself as a strange, but harmless ecologist, talks about some of the many creatures in Muskoka including the beaver, the expected effects for Muskoka from climate change, an idea or two on solutions, and that there are other ways of valuing our environment other than simply to value it as a storehouse of resources to dig up and take away.

Muskoka Activities, Stewardship

Tired of environmental finger wagging? Come and hear some good news and how we can all move forward.

Wed. August 15 th at the Port Carling Community Centre at 7:00 is the latest of the Muskoka Watershed Council’s Environmental lecture series.

Did you know that Gravenhurst Bay is 5 times cleaner now than it once was? That Muskoka has only half as many acid lakes as it once did? That lead pollution, once a common environmental and human health problem, has all but disappeared? That the concentration of pesticides in the environment fell 10 to 100 fold once the cosmetic use of pesticides was banned?

We can, and often have, solved very large and complicated environmental problems that affect our health and the condition of the watersheds we share with thousands of other species. In this Muskoka Watershed Council lecture, Dr. Norman Yan will celebrate our past environmental successes by briefly reviewing the history of several good news stories. More importantly, he will talk about what we have learned from the past and the steps we need to take to solve today’s environmental problems.

We have created global environmental problems, but we have also solved environmental problems of a global scale on more than one occasion. Come learn how we can move from creating to solving such problems.

cottage life, Invasive Species, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, owning a cottage, Stewardship, Uncategorized, Volunteer, water

What do you really want to know? Muskoka Watershed Council wants to hear from you.

In cottage real estate we get asked a lot of questions: Is it weedy?; Eeeew! What’s that stuff?; Why don’t we see crayfish anymore?; My boathouse dock’s underwater – what’s with the water levels this year?; Is my water safe for swimming?; etc. It’s really a lot of fun to answer most of the time!
But here’s a chance to have some of what you want to know, perhaps monitored over time and have it reported on every 4 years!

As many readers of this weblog know, the Muskoka Watershed Council (MWC) is a volunteer based non-profit organization with the mandate to champion watershed health in Muskoka; I am one of those volunteers.

MWC produces a Report Card every four years. The Report Card is a science-based evaluation of the health of the water, land, and wetlands in Muskoka and the municipalities that share Muskoka’s watersheds. Three Watershed Report Cards have been released to date (2004, 2007 & 2010)  We are also assisting the Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve with the development of a State of the Bay Report for Georgian Bay, which will be released this year.

For the next Watershed Report Card due to be released in 2014, we want to hear from you, what you want to know about the health of our watersheds.
Click on the page below to ask your questions or find out more.

2014_RC_Request

cottage life, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, Volunteer

Muskoka Minutes

I just finished the final edit and posted a couple of videos to YouTube that I shot back in July: Muskoka Minutes Slog, Muskoka Minutes Zoe.

The idea behind Muskoka Minutes is to show work being done by scientists and others in the field here in Muskoka on the Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube Channel. More details are here on the day spent tracking Blanding’s turtles, a species at risk in Ontario. My thanks to Jeremy, Kelsey, Mike and also Glenda.

Blanding’s Turtle

They used to have a much larger range in Ontario and were much more common in Muskoka – see below. They have many predators and like other turtle species have had their habitats carved up by roads.

Historic and current range of Blanding’s Turtles.
client activities, cottage life, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, water

Muskoka Moments starts with a winner!

I posted a few videos today. One is the 1st of a Muskoka Moments collection.

The idea of Muskoka Moments is to show people and places in Muskoka, but more importantly, to try to show the connection between the two.

Our first video Backyard Swamp, Bracebridge, is a perfect example to lead off. The star of the video, shows off his knowledge of the natural world around him and his excellent backyard! The video was created by a newbie to Final Cut Pro -nice work!

If anyone has a 1 or 2 minute video (or aspires to shoot some) that shows the connection between people and our beautiful environment here in Muskoka, let me know.

We can even do the editing for you!

Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, Volunteer

A wild solution for Climate Change.

A fascinating presentation by Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University, this is the evening keynote lecture from the biennial Muskoka Summit on the Environment . On June 6th and 7th I recorded the presentations over the two day summit. Broadcast, in part, by CBC Radio’s Ideas with Paul Kennedy, (search for Buying Into Biodiversity), these were world-class lectures, presented here in Muskoka. I am delighted to be able to ensure these are available to the world.

This lecture is now available at the following link on Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube channel: A wild solution for Climate Change.

Advisor to Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, Dr. Lovejoy discusses implications and complications of climate change from many interesting perspectives, but, also offers workable solutions.

Planetary engineering to lower atmospheric carbon.
Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, Volunteer

Biodiversity science for global environmental change.

At the biennial Muskoka Summit on the Environment Steve Hounsell from the Ontario Biodiversity Council presented Ontario’s Biodiversity Strategy – Protecting What Sustains Us.

On June 6th and 7th I recorded the presentations over the two day summit. Broadcast, in part, by CBC Radio’s Ideas with Paul Kennedy, (search for Buying Into Biodiversity), these were world-class lectures, presented here in Muskoka. I am delighted to be able to ensure these are available to the world.

I have just finished editing this lecture, which is now available at the following link on Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube channel: Ontario’s Biodiversity Strategy – Protecting What Sustains Us.

In this straightforward and important talk, Steve gives us an acronym to help understand threats to biodiversity, speaks of the need to link Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and talks about the Strategic Biodiversity Plan for Ontario.

H I P P O soon to be C H I P P O.
Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, Volunteer

Living Landscape. A Biodiversity Action Plan for Greater Sudbury

Many of us remember the really interesting, but bleak landscape that was Sudbury a few decades ago. As one of the epicentres of sulfur dioxide pollution from the nickel smelters, Sudbury’s landscape resembled the Moon, or Mars much more than the rest of Northern Ontario.

Well things are quite different now and Stephen Monet presents the 4th lecture from the biennial Muskoka Summit on the Environment . On June 6th and 7th I recorded the presentations over the two day summit. Broadcast, in part, by CBC Radio’s Ideas with Paul Kennedy, (search for Buying Into Biodiversity), these were world-class lectures, presented here in Muskoka. I am delighted to be able to ensure these are available to the world.

This lecture is now available at the following link on Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube channel: Living Landscape. A Biodiversity Action Plan for Greater Sudbury

Stephen takes us through the process of rehabilitating the Greater Sudbury area and commits that “we are in it for the long haul.”

Improving the lake is only a short term fix without improving the watershed.

This is a real community effort and the results are all headed in the right direction.

Students do some of the work and learn about biodiversity.
Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, Volunteer

Biodiversity science for global environmental change.

Another highly engaging presentation, this one by Andrew Gonzalez of McGill University and the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, is the 3rd lecture from the biennial Muskoka Summit on the Environment . On June 6th and 7th I recorded the presentations over the two day summit. Broadcast, in part, by CBC Radio’s Ideas with Paul Kennedy, (search for Buying Into Biodiversity), these were world-class lectures, presented here in Muskoka. I am delighted to be able to ensure these are available to the world.

This lecture is now available at the following link on Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube channel: Biodiversity science for global environmental change.

Using Baker’s yeast, Andrew and team observed “evolutionary rescue” – the recovery of a declining population due to local adaptation under increased environmental stress.

Extinction and evolutionary rescue with a robot

Among Andrew’s key messages: Biodiversity loss is as important as major forms of environmental change.

Changes in productivity – species loss compared to environmental change.