Welcome, 

Your influences can have a huge impact on shorelines. We believe daily actions by all individuals help to preserve the water in lakes and rivers. Shoreline landowners in particular can play a significant role.





Love Your Lake Includes:

  • A peer reviewed method for shoreline evaluation focussing on human impacts and the degree of impact on the lake, documented on a property level
  • An online database for data entry and evaluation
  • Shoreline report templates for individual property reports for landowners
  • Access to support including staff, contact management and materials for program delivery
  • Evaluations to track the impacts of voluntary stewardship activities
  • Training in the use of protocol including how to classify a shoreline, and how property owners can carry out stewardship recommendations
  • Individualized reports for every property on the lake with detailed stewardship suggestions for each
  • Communications methods for connecting with your landowners, partners, lake associations and more

 

Why Healthy Shorelines and Lakes Are Important:

 

Shorelines are some of the most ecologically productive places on Earth. They support plants, microorganisms, insects, amphibians, birds, mammals and fish. Did you know that the first 10 to 15 metres of land surrounding lakes and rivers is responsible for 90 per cent of lake life born, raised and fed in these areas? In addition, these areas are up to 500 per cent more diverse than other areas upland from lakes and rivers.

Imagine a quiet canoe ride across a misty morning lake, a late afternoon trip trolling for fish, or a leisurely evening swim,– all of these activities require a healthy lake. Of course there are many other benefits of having a healthy lake – perhaps most importantly, healthy lakes provide clean drinking water and habitat for fish and wildlife.

 

Benefits of Love Your Lake:

  • It is an educational tool for lake residents on the state of their lake, how their actions influence lake health and ways they can improve lake health.
  • It is private; only the landowner sees his/her property report.
  • The program is voluntary, as are the recommended actions.
  • It is locally driven and completed by trained assessors.
  • It leads to long-term stewardship action.
  • Data can be compared over time to determine improvements in lake health.

 

And we're just starting! This page is under construction. Much more will come as we grow this program so check back again! For further information, please go to Centre For Sustainable Watersheds and click on the Love Your Lake tab or contact the Centre for Sustainable Watersheds at info@watersheds.ca