Citizen Science and Greenspace Planning in the Rouge River Watershed

Abstract

The Rouge Park is a large 46-km2 protected greenspace situated in one of Canada's largest urbanized regions, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), an area that covers the Region of Halton, Region of Peel, Region of York, Region of Durham, and the City of Toronto. This article highlights the actions and participation of civil society groups working in the park and how they have been successful in utilizing citizen science and ecologically based arguments to legitimize their case for conservation and thus build broad public support for their goals. Using a typology of key environmental planning case studies relevant to the park, the article identifies three distinct ways civil society groups utilized scientific expertise to facilitate and enforce a conservation narrative. First they identified and utilized existing scientific reports, second they published their own reports/studies, and third they applied a hands-on approach and initiated community-based restoration and monitoring programmes. This article concludes that in community-level environmental controversies, science represents a powerful tool for civil society in the planning and land management regime in Ontario.