Heart of the Continent Partnership
M. McKinnon
It stretches some 250 km east to west and 200 km north to south: more than to two million hectares of working forest, wilderness, rugged scenery, pristine watersheds, abundant wildlife and outstanding biodiversity.
What is it?
It’s where we live – in the Heart of the Continent.
The area between Rainy Lake and the western shores of Lake Superior, from the White Otter wilderness to the Superior National Forest, is one of North America’s greatest resources of public green space.
It’s rarely recognized as such, however. That’s mostly because all sorts of boundary lines divide it – park and forest boundaries, county lines, and even an international boundary.
But for the past five years, a growing group of people from the area – land managers, academics, government officials and local stakeholders – have been working together to promote the economic, natural and cultural health of the lakes, forests and communities of the region along the Minnesota and Ontario border.
They are coming more and more to see beyond the boundary lines, to see this region as one, as the Heart of the Continent.
“Really, what we are trying to do is change reality into perception,” says Quetico Park superintendent Robin Reilly.
The efforts so far have paid off with better cooperation among park officials and land managers on both sides of the border, and in increased levels of scientific research in the region.
As an organization, the partners in the Heart of the Continent group now want to encourage the communities within the region to adopt this more collaborative approach. That makes sense: the communities within this sea of public land have much in common. They tend to be small and rather remote, their residents share a love of the bush (fishing, hunting, and outdoor recreation in all its forms), and their economies tend to be resource-dependent (forestry, mining, tourism) and rather shaky, even at the best of times.
The HoC Partnership recognizes that vibrant communities are essential to the overall well-being of public lands in the region. It believes that a balance of nature and commerce can be reached that will be mutually beneficial, that will support stronger communities and a rich diversity of public lands… that will make both the communities and the public lands sustainable long into the future.
Earlier this month, the Partnership started planning a four-day gathering in October, 2011, open to all of the residents and user groups, for a ‘sustainable gateway communities’ workshop. The goals of the workshop are lofty: enhanced awareness of, and interest in, public land, and support for communities and public lands, so they can thrive together.
But, really, the workshop will be an opportunity for people to come together on specific actions to make those lofty goals a reality.
Here’s an area that may present real opportunity: All of the communities, and hundreds of businesses within them, are marketing outside the region now. Despite that, the region has little national or international presence – the BWCA or Quetico, by itself, can hardly compete with the Rockies, or the Maritimes, or Mexico, in the broader consciousness. Could a concerted, cooperative effort (that reality into perception thing again) create an awareness of the Heart of the Continent? If so, that could give all of the communities, and all of the businesses, within the region a new competitive edge.
The Partnership, which is committed to remaining a non-partisan forum, has proven that collaborative efforts can enhance land management and academic research efforts. The workshop could well take that a few steps further, and bring together communities so they can take greater benefit from this great green space resource.
For more on the Partnership, see www.HeartOfTheContinent.org.
Heart of the Continent includes seven Ontario provincial parks (with Quetico being, by far, the largest), 11 Minnesota state parks, five national organizations (the Lake Superior Marine National Conservation Area on this side of the border; Voyageurs and Isle Royale National Parks, Grand Portage National Monument and Superior National Forest on the U.S. side), the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and eight trail groups (seven on the U.S. side).
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