Throughout Canada, there are many organizations that develop, fund, maintain, and promote a variety of trails at the local, provincial and national level.
Generally, these organizations are staffed by dedicated volunteers and channel whatever monies they have directly towards improving the trail system. There’s no neat diagram to explain the work or relationship of these organizations, and their difference in size, longevity, purpose and capacity is vast. Some trail groups are new, while others have extensive experience in trail building and know more about funding mechanisms and working with different levels of government.
In the eyes of many trail stakeholders, including users, builders, operators and government funding partners, there is too little focus on collaboration, understanding, or reaching out and too much time spent looking inwards.
Trail leaders recognize that the trails sector is comprised of a large number of stakeholders with different needs and goals. The National Trails Leadership Roundtable was designed to determine if there was support for improving collaboration across the sector, so that leaders of a variety of organizations can clarify their roles and responsibilities as positive contributors to the trails movement at the national level. This initiative was funded by the Trans Canada Trail and Parks Canada. The Roundtable provided a forum for trail leaders to meet and talk candidly about their shared interests and concerns. A consulting firm, MASS LBP, was engaged to facilitate the process. They prepared two research papers in advance of the Roundtable meeting in Banff that was held from November 23 to 25, 2010.
To read more click here.
The press release along with the full Summary report and a link to the Trails survey are available on the CCSO web site - on the home page under the title - Important Trails Alert
CCSO needs your feedback through a national trails survey.
Click here for the direct survey
