The Watershed Wise Program: Creating a Watershed Wise Community
What is the “Program”?
Watershed Wise is an education and awareness resource program designed to increase understanding of the value of urban watersheds and wildspaces.
“As populations grow and the living landscape is transformed to a built environment, our relationship to what was once wilderness becomes more distant,” states Pamela Zevit. “Watershed Wise has been developed using the principle that mentorship and interaction at the community level is the most 
effective means of instilling an environmental stewardship and conservation ethic.”
“The term ‘wildspace’ a keyword in the principles of Watershed Wise is employed to reaffirm that those special places are still close to home in our urban environment. Though our notion of wilderness may no longer be the same in our towns and cities, from backyards to corner woodlots to neighbourhood creeks we can still connect back to a sense of the wild.”
Transferring Empowerment
“Investing in the delivery and development of the Watershed Wise Program is investing in a vehicle for transferring empowerment through knowledge and 
action from those who are being the change to those who want to become part of that change and build a broader community that sees itself as part of not separate from nature and all that it provides.”
“The Watershed Wise Program has the qualities necessary to provide the “a ha” moment or tipping point in peoples minds whereby they can move from thinking about and issue (e.g. conserving nature, salmon, water, earth) to feeling they have the resources to individually and collectively do something about those issues,” concludes Pamela Zevit.
About Pamela Zevit
Pamela Zevit is the creator of the Watershed Wise Program, first copyrighted in 2002. A professional conservation biologist her work focuses on ecological literacy, research and developing outreach tools for protecting biodiversity and species and ecosystems at risk.
A co-founder of the local Como Watershed group in 1996 she continues to provide science based management and advocacy support for local and regional initiatives and projects. Pamela Zevit administers and oversees ongoing delivery of Watershed Wise.
Posted September 2009