About
Georgian Bay Forever, a Top-100-Canadian-ranked charity, is dedicated to protecting and preserving Georgian Bay water and wetlands as part of the Great Lakes. Our supporters are committed, determined, passionate friends who care deeply about our freshwater because they have strong connections to the Bay and the Great Lakes. They are connected to it through their history and a lifelong passion for enjoying the unique beauty and natural landscapes of the archipelago.
Our mission is to protect and enhance Georgian Bay through science, research, education, and action.
Our vision is to ensure Georgian Bay is healthy and thriving forever.
Since 1995, Georgian Bay Forever has been the voice of the water. We invest diligently and efficiently in boots-on-the-ground programs and partnerships that work to engage communities in plastic pollution reduction, re-naturalization of coastal shorelines, and the creation of new habitats for species at risk. Our work is science-based and driven by the need to preserve water quality by educating children, youth, cottagers, landowners, and municipalities on how to better protect the water.
The Great Lakes and Georgian Bay are in peril – threatened by development, pollution, invasive species, and global heating.
• The Great Lakes have more estimated microplastics per square kilometer than the Pacific Garbage Patch. This pollution ends up in our food, drinking water, and air.
• Only 9% of plastic is actually recycled, while an estimated 79% ends up in landfills and nature.
• Invasive Phragmites is decimating wetlands and killing off coastal “ribbons of life”, where the vast majority of aquatic, terrestrial and migratory bird species are found.
• Children are suffering from eco-anxiety, a chronic fear of environmental impacts that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change.
• Over-development of coastlines is crowding, polluting, and wiping out natural ecosystems that are essential to the foundation of life on Earth.
NOW is the time for action. Our programs work to monitor long-term water quality, enable natural resilience and the preservation of habitat and biodiversity, and educate and engage the public in ways to preserve our fresh water’s future.
Every action matters. Every gift helps.
Our Impact
Boots On The Ground:
Our Divert & Capture and Diversion 2.0 programs work collaboratively with citizens, municipalities, and other ENGOs to divert plastics from entering the water. We have increased our impact exponentially year after year and have removed over 4,980.24 lbs of garbage in just four years, while restoring 248,670 m2 of shoreline.
Through The Critical Catch program, we collected 38.5 km of abandoned fishing line and sent it to Berkley Fishing Company for recycling, with 15 large fishing line collection bins installed and 225 individual collection containers distributed to anglers. We also enrolled eight schools in our curriculum-based Fish in a Classroom project, where children raised brook trout fry and learn about the fish’s habitat and life cycles.
Our Phragbusters have been working hard at training volunteers and controlling the invasion of Phragmites, which is decimating our wetlands. Over the last 13 years we have placed 74% of our identified stands in the control or eradication phase of management and have worked diligently to expand the reach of efforts with this program by “training the trainer” and providing support to other communities that are working on this issue.
Educating our young and old.
Through Project Watershed: Inspiring Youth for a Sustainable Future, we address and mitigate the root causes of pollution (human action) in the water, by providing critical environmental education in a fun and interactive way. We offer free of charge, programs including: Microplastics in a Backpack, Enviroscapes, Yellow Fish Road, and Families 4 Change. By creating and delivering educational programming for children, youth and families, we are helping to change the mindsets of those who will become better stewards of the Earth and water in the future. Just last year alone, we educated 1,779 people directly and ten’s of thousands indirectly.
State-of-the Art Technology Toolkit
Our Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, the only one in Canada dedicated solely to water research, is playing a key role in creating a baseline water quality framework for Georgian Bay by measuring turbidity, pH levels, temperature, dissolved compounds, and oxygen levels, without human error playing a role. Our Remote Operated Vehicle can collect physical samples from the lake bottom as well as take high quality visuals of the aquatic life to determine plant life and identify issues. Our multi-spectral drone equipped with multiple wavelength cameras can survey wetlands for Phragmites and identify different forms of vegetation 10x faster than current methods.
