Chelsea’s Master Plan for an environment-friendly community
Amid a global pandemic, a looming climate catastrophe, and an ongoing biodiversity crisis, the municipality of Chelsea is revising its Master Plan. Can a small municipality play a role in being part of the solution to these massive problems? We say “Yes”. The Chelsea Master Plan is the main guidebook used to plan our community, and its revision is an opportunity for us to work collectively to support local environmental action for global change. As Chelsea decides on planning and policy guidelines for the coming years, we need your help to develop a forward-looking Master Plan for a greener and healthier future that is coherent with the global challenges of our time. This is your chance to stand up and speak out for the future you want.
The timing of Chelsea’s Master Plan revision comes at a pivotal moment for the planet. Scientists, citizens and even the World Economic Forum are calling for urgent transformative action to prevent climate catastrophe and biodiversity collapse. We need solutions at all levels: global, national, provincial and municipal. Nature-based solutions – the protection, restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems – provide a cost-effective means to tackle these interrelated global crises. Intact ecosystems sustain biodiversity and can help communities achieve their climate change mitigation and adaptation goals. Municipalities have an important role to play in implementing nature-based solutions across their territories and combining them with other environmental policies that reduce carbon emissions from transportation, homes and businesses. We can lead by example and prioritize nature conservation and climate action in Chelsea’s Master Plan, making Chelsea carbon neutral by 2035.
Yes, we can!
Action Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment is keen to partner with the municipality to implement a green, science-based Master Plan. As a community-based organization, we have worked to safeguard nature in Chelsea for over 20 years, implementing a variety of environmental programs, such as Nature Chelsea to protect biodiversity hotspots, H2O Chelsea to study water quality and Chelsea’s pesticide bylaws to regulate cosmetic pesticides. We continue to amplify the voices of Chelsea residents on environmental issues. In 2016, we organized a sustainability round table and shared the results with the municipality.
ACRE has just launched an online survey on the importance of nature to Chelsea (available in English: https://s.surveyplanet.com/-S4oZRHnl and French: https://s.surveyplanet.com/wAMdPawve).
This is your opportunity to speak up for nature and be heard. We also encourage you to engage directly with the municipality by sending your ideas and questions to plan@chelsea.ca and by attending the public consultations about the Master Plan in the fall.
It is time for bold action. We will look back at 2020 as a crossroads in our fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Together, let’s make a plan and set Chelsea on the best path to be a truly environment-friendly community.
Submitted by ACRE board members: Carolyn Farquhar, Olaf Jensen, Stephan Moresoli, John Mynott, Bronwyn Rayfield, Allyson Quinlan and Stephen Woodley