Ausable Bayfield Conservation invites community to celebrate 75 years of local watershed management in 2021

Public invited to celebrate 75 years of conservation success as Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority (ABCA) recognizes 75th anniversary

The year 2021 is to be a momentous year in local watershed conservation. Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority (ABCA) invites the public to help celebrate 75 years of conservation in this watershed community. This is to take place during the organization’s 75th anniversary year, in 2021. 

The former Ausable River Conservation Authority was Ontario’s first conservation authority, created on July 30, 1946. The Bayfield River watershed and smaller streams were added in 1971.

Ausable Bayfield Conservation staff members, working with the public, plan to host a number of activities in 2021 to celebrate the watershed community’s past conservation successes and also to leave a legacy for the future with new conservation initiatives. 

“Local municipal leaders showed great vision when they called for the creation of this conservation authority back in 1946,” said Doug Cook, Chair of the ABCA Board of Directors. “We have completed important projects over the past 75 years to protect life and property, preserve watershed resources, and to improve water quality, soil health, forest and wetland conditions, and habitat for all living things,” he said. “This success has been possible thanks to the vision of local municipal leaders, the support of our local ratepayers, and an engaged community of donors and volunteers, along with many other community partners.”



An anniversary committee expects to announce, early in 2021, some of the plans for this commemoration year. The 75th anniversary committee will adapt activities to ensure they reflect public health direction to help keep people safe during the current pandemic.

Residents in the watershed may choose to make donations to projects such as tree planting, turtle monitoring and protection, wetland creation, pollinator habitat, conservation education, or other conservation projects in honour of this special year.

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Conservation Dinner committee plans new ways to fundraise, in 2021, including online auction

Support for community conservation projects is still needed but committee developing innovative ways to fundraise in place of in-person dinner; Conservation Dinner public event is cancelled for 2021 but online auction, other fundraising activities to replace dinner event during pandemic 

The Conservation Dinner Committee is asking for public support of community conservation projects in 2021. The committee has met by video conference to develop innovative new fundraising ideas, including an online auction, to replace – for 2021 – the in-person dinner and auction event.

The committee has cancelled an in-person dinner for 2021 and postponed it until 2022. The committee will host an online auction and other fundraising events in 2021, as alternatives, to make it possible to support needed community conservation projects. 

Dinner Committee Chair Dave Frayne said it’s disappointing not to have the fellowship of a dinner in person this upcoming year but he said the committee is excited to develop other ways to engage the community and support projects in the community.

“The Conservation Dinner has been a wonderful event for 30 years but it is the right thing to do to postpone the 2021 event and replace it with other ways for people to be part of this community enhancement effort,” he said. 

When the Conservation Dinner is held in person there are more than 400 people present so that is not appropriate during a pandemic, he said. That’s why the committee is strategizing other ways for community members to join an auction event ‘virtually’ through an online auction with bidding from April 15 to April 22 (Earth Day).

The committee also hopes to announce other engaging fundraising activities to take place during the 2021 year including a 50-50 draw, on April 15, in support of community conservation projects of the Exeter Lions Club and Ausable Bayfield Conservation Foundation. Other planned activities include special take-out ‘conservation dinners,’ at participating local restaurants, in support of needed community conservation projects.

The Conservation Dinner fundraising initiative supports projects in local communities. Projects include parks and conservation areas; accessible nature trails in Bayfield, Clinton, Parkhill, Lucan, Arkona, Exeter, and Varna; outdoor nature education programs; a $1,000 student environmental bursary benefitting students in local communities; a summer job at Ausable Bayfield Conservation for a senior secondary school student; turtle monitoring in Port Franks and Ailsa Craig; aquatic habitat studies in Old Ausable Channel at Grand Bend; and other projects.

Organizers say they hope the Conservation Dinner in-person event will return in 2022 when it is safe to do so.


The Conservation Dinner is a partnership of Exeter Lions Club, Ausable Bayfield Conservation Foundation, and other community partners. It has raised more than $1.2 million for projects in local communities over 30 years.

To receive announcements of new fundraising activities, to replace the Dinner in 2021, visit conservationdinner.com and abca.ca.

Partnership promotes Healthy Lake Huron from land to lake

We are all pieces of the puzzle, according to Lake Huron partnership

Lake Huron partners are promoting a healthy Lake Huron from land to the lake. The Healthy Lake Huron partnership says we are all a ‘piece of the puzzle’ when it comes to keeping this Great Lake great.

Local partners created videos and social media posts, throughout 2020, to engage people in best management practices for towns, villages, and cities and for agriculture and industry. Thousands of people have been engaged by this campaign. To view or read some of this information on protecting Lake Huron visit healthylakehuron.ca or search these hashtags on Facebook or Twitter: #healthylakehuron #landtolake #pieceofthepuzzle 

The Piece of the Puzzle information campaign began in spring of 2020 and continues into 2021.

The campaign themes are Soil, Water, Food, Beach, Nature, and Community. Everyone’s actions fit into one or more of these categories, according to the Partnership.

“Together, each of our puzzle pieces create the complete and complex puzzle of a Healthy Lake Huron,” according to the healthylakehuron.ca website. “We cannot see the whole picture without fitting the pieces together first. How do you fit in, and what can you do to help improve the health of this beautiful watershed?”

There have been many positive actions over the past decade. They range from soil health and cover crop initiatives to water quality monitoring and reduction of water quality impacts from multiple sources. “However, we realize we still have work to do to address ongoing water quality and soil health challenges,” according to Healthy Lake Huron.

Community and individual actions work. That is a message, for people along or near Lake Huron’s southeast shore, in an area stretching from Sarnia to Tobermory, from Jo-Anne Harbinson, Manager of Stewardship Services at Saugeen Conservation. She educates and supports the public in their work to improve water quality. “Everyone has a part to play in water quality and ecosystem health,” she said.

Partners in the Healthy Lake Huron initiative, along Lake Huron’s southeast shore, include local public health, local government, Departments and Ministries, communities and landowners, and local conservation organizations. Find out more here:
 

• Healthy Lake Huron from land to lake - Be a piece of the puzzle