Success Stories
Thank you for making a big difference.
“These rivers are the lifeblood of our communities and culture, providing hundreds of jobs related to salmon…canoeing…wildlife. I see changes in the river with floods out of season, riverbanks washing away, rivers running silty brown after rains. We need to protect our rivers and forests.”
— André Arpin, Canoe Restigouche
Project Profile
This project has been fully funded by LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics and individual donors.
We put this project on the Small Change Fund website because we believed that if government heard from at least 4000 New Brunswickers and Canadians, they would have to respond with improved protection of the natural areas in the Restigouche.
The New Brunswick provincial government announced an expansion of the protected areas system on public land, and a new policy for riverbank management. Government will decide which areas of public land will be protected from industrial development.
Our vision for community vitality focuses on protecting the natural assets of the Restigouche region of New Brunswick and the Gaspé, as identified by community members across the region.
These assets include: protected wilderness areas and scenic rivers that support the tourism sector; forest areas managed for non-timber forest products; and protected rivers where industrial development is strictly controlled to prevent damage to wild Atlantic salmon habitat and spawning grounds.
The Restigouche is dominated by public land, all currently allocated for industrial forestry. The population of the region is sparse and dwindling, while forestry and mining sectors that have driven the economy are providing drastically fewer jobs. Entrepreneurial people in the region are eager to develop an alternative economic reality that builds on the natural assets and incorporates jobs in ecotourism and green technology.
It is proving difficult for a small rural population, with little capacity for communications, to have much power to influence government decisions. We want to use public outreach tools to create a support base outside the local area and amplify the community's message, so that provincial decision-makers will have to incorporate our vision in their public land decisions.
We put this project on the Small Change Fund website because we believed that if government heard from at least 4000 New Brunswickers and Canadians, they would have to respond with improved protection of the natural areas in the Restigouche.
We already had a bilingual web site (wildrestigouche.ca / restigouchesauvage.ca), online petition and postcards. We needed to disseminate information about the campaign if we were to get at least 4000 supporters to communicate with the Premier of New Brunswick. We are delighted to report that we actually received support from over 5000 people! Read more about the project on our website here - http://209.212.147.200/~cpaws/restigouche/news/news-release-conservation-group-delivers-5000-names-in-support-of-keeping-the-restigouche-wild-to-pr.php
We used your funds to showcase the spectacular wild Restigouche mountains, rivers and forests in videos and displays at events outside the Restigouche region (trade shows, community events, fairs, outdoor gear stores), where people could send a postcard or take immediate action online. We were able to bring media representatives to the Restigouche to call attention to this strategic window of opportunity.
Thank you for your support, it helped us raise awareness of this important issue and achieve more than we had hoped to.
The Friends of Restigouche mission is to achieve a plan for the Restigouche that conserves the range of natural habitats and wildlife populations across the entire Restigouche River watershed (both in New Brunswick and Quebec) and supports vibrant human communities, quality recreational experiences and sustainable forest and river-based economies.
