Graeme Stewart-Robertson

Our best example of community-based monitoring influencing change is really the Saint John Harbour clean-up. That whole project, the infrastructure spending, the impetus for getting three levels of government to cooperate with a group like ACAP Saint John to further the goal of removing raw sewage from the environment was because of community-based monitoring.  It was because in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, volunteers and academic researchers and people from different organizations working through ACAP Saint John were going out and collecting data to see just how bad the influence of raw sewage was on fisheries, on human health, on our neighbourhoods. And that helped create the public opinion and the political will to make that project a reality.

That’s our best example, but we continue to use that same model of community engagement and monitoring to influence policy and contribute to positive change. We’ve really had a lot of success engaging people that way and transforming that into physical change on the ground.