Conservation Planning

Many of us enjoy living in Chelsea due to the wealth of natural areas and abundance of wildlife. Gatineau Park provides excellent habitat for a wide variety of plants and wildlife, but in order to sustain it and the health of the surrounding natural areas, we need to ensure that it is connected to other areas that are ecologically functional.

Chelsea continues to be developed at a rapid pace. Within 10 years it is possible that it will be fully built-out. Within that context, ACRE is exploring the question: How do we meet the needs of our expanding community while conserving the natural areas we all enjoy?

In order to address this question, ACRE is in the initial phases of a new conservation initiative. This involves gathering relevant information and entering a dialogue with potential partners.

As a first step, ACRE has built a model that allows us to map areas within Chelsea that have a high potential conservation value. These were identified based on criteria such as distance to roads, occurrence of rare and endangered species, proximity to water courses, amount of forested areas, and wetlands. The result is a basic tool that will help us to prioritize specific areas to consider for conservation .

Areas of potential high conservation value occur throughout the municipality. Whether and how these values are conserved will depend on a range of factors and tools available.
Possibilities include private stewardship efforts, land purchase or assignment of conservation easements, municipal designations (e.g. recreation lands, wetlands), and other protected area designations.

This effort will only succeed with public support and creative partnerships. Chelsea residents who are interested in this initiative and/or who have information they wish to share are encouraged to get involved with ACRE. ACRE maintains a dialogue about this project with the Municipal Council, and is also looking for ways to collaborate with a national land trust, the Nature Conservancy of Canada (www.nature.org).