Environmental Non-governmental Organizations and Management of Water Resources in the Fraser River Basin

Abstract

"This paper examines the roles played by community-based environmental non-government organizations in environmental stewardship in the Fraser River Basin. It is based on interviews of ENGO representatives undertaken over a two-year period in the Lower Mainland and selected interior towns within the drainage of the Fraser River. The research is exploratory; the objective was to seek evidence of patterns suggested in the literature regarding the role of voluntary environmental stewardship in social change towards sustainable development, particularly with respect to aquatic resource management. While many hours of interviews were undertaken, there was no attempt to build a data base suitable for statistical analysis. The focus of the analysis is on perceptions held by the ENGO's of the stewardship role in the context of other potential roles, such as politically activist ones, and in the context of perceived government performance. Results indicate an awareness of the need to cooperatively fill gaps in aquatic resource conservation that government agencies are unable to fill, complemented by a vigilant attitude towards government performance in fulfilling its mandate. Also apparent is an increasing willingness to adopt more confrontational tactics if government performance is seen as persistently inadequate."