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Looking for a riparian image? Check out the NEW Cows and Fish Photo Gallery for a selection of riparian images available for download.
NEW Digital Stories & Videos Cows and Fish has partnered with the Centre for Digital Storytelling (www.storycenter.org) to continue to enhance our storytelling skills and engage audiences with meaningful messages. Digital storytelling is the art of using digital media to craft, record, share, and value the stories of individuals and communities, in ways that improve all our lives. Category: Stewardship A look back in time helps answer a question posed to me by my good friend and rancher, Don Ruzicka of Sunrise Farms. If a stewardship ethic exists in some of us, does it exist in all of us? Category: Place Landscapes are changing - a once hidden lake along the Klondike trail is now the cottagers dream in 'oil country'. This story explores the need for balance - development, livestock and recreation versus habitat, water quality and homes. Category: Stewardship Because Mike and Mark Walter care about their creek they decided to take action on improving their land and cattle management. Mike and Mark, father and son, are a good team and by using decades of cattle sense, common sense and farmer-rancher know-how they have greatly improved the health of their watershed. Using poetry and narrative Mike and Mark tell their story. Category: Community This story describes my personal journey from a tiny village in Nicaragua to present day rural Alberta. It is a journey towards building community trust and regaining control of the issues facing agricultural communities across Alberta. Cows and Fish works with communities by first building trust and ecological literacy along the path to landscape health. However, this pathway is not set in stone as we continue to benefit from the wisdom of people who understand the landscape better than anyone - landowners and producers. New Survey - Fish 101 - The Magic and Mystery of Fish Help us better understand the knowledge of Albertan on fish and fish habitat! Please take about 10 minutes to fill out the survey (.doc format), save it, and e-mail it back to us at nambrose@cowsandfish.org, or print it off (.pdf format) and mail it to us at Cows and Fish, 2nd Floor, YPM Place, 530-8th Street South, Lethbridge, AB, T1J 2J8. Your assistance will allow us and other organisations better design and deliver programs that relate to fish, their habitat and surrounding ecosystems. This work is being done with assistance from our supporters, in partnership with Trout Unlimited Canada and financial assistance from Stewardship In Action, Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Grazing Schools for Women - A wide range of farming and ranching women from across southern and north central Alberta attended the schools in Kinsella and Pincher Creek in 2004. Those that attended had a great time and based on their feedback, two more were held in St. Paul and Stavely in 2005. Comments included: "Fantastic!" and "Thank you for holding such a workshop". Participants indicated the workshop had many values for them, including meeting other women in similar situations, sharing ideas, and building hands-on skills like how to identify pasture plants. Thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters, as well as the organizing committee. Cows and Fish support for the event was provided by our many supporters and funders. In Northern Alberta: Contact Kerri O'Shaughnessy at koshaugh@cowsandfish.org or (780) 427-7940. View the 2008 brochure (1.1 MB PDF) & 2008 poster (1.1 MB PDF) or click here for some past brochures. In Central Alberta: Contact Kelsey Spicer-Rawe at kspicer@cowsandfish.org or (403) 340-7607. View the 2008 brochure (1.4 MB PDF) and the 2008 poster (1.5 MB PDF). In Southern Alberta: Contact Norine Ambrose at nambrose@cowsandfish.org or (403) 381-5538. View the 2008 brochure (2,279 KB PDF) or click here for some past brochures. Watch here for details on upcoming grazing school opportunities. Cows and Fish Has Won the Alberta Emerald Award in Education! We are very honoured to accept this award for Cows and Fish. The Emerald Awards recognize "outstanding initiatives and achievements in dealing with many environmental challenges". We are very proud on behalf of our hard-working staff and our program to have been included in this prestigious event. This Emerald Award, coupled with the national Canadian Environment Gold Award in the "Environmental Learning" category (2003), provides a tangible sense that our role, as a stewardship program providing education and awareness, is being increasingly recognized for its utility, focus and high standards. These awards are recognition that education, a process of conveying information in a way that changes beliefs, can also change the way we interact with, and care for the world. Perhaps this is also an acknowledgement that education is a process that takes time, and to be effective requires patience and persistence. We recognize that our accomplishments result from the help of many individuals, organizations and agencies over a broad range of time, beginning with the formation of our program in 1992. Our funding, which fuels the engine of Cows and Fish, comes from a wide range of sources. Our support network includes: Alberta Beef Producers, Trout Unlimited Canada, Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Alberta Environment, Alberta Community Development, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (PFRA), Canadian Cattlemen's Association, Alberta Environmentally Sustainable Agriculture (AESA) program, Canada-Alberta Rural Development Fund (Ag and Food Canada), Canada-Alberta Beef Industry Development Fund, FortisAlberta, Wildlife Habitat Canada and Canada's Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Program and Habitat Stewardship Program. [see Members and Supporters and Donors] Especially important are the open, willing landowners and community groups that allow us to work with them to achieve their riparian goals. We are most grateful for the support provided. In a real sense, this Emerald Award is shared with those organisations, agencies and individuals, in recognition and acknowledgement of their role and continued support of the program and what it represents. Cows and Fish has just released a new document - A Field Guide to Common Riparian Plants of Alberta. This new 62 page coil-bound field guide includes information on identifying some common riparian plants as well as how they link to riparian health. Examples of how our management choices change riparian plant communities are included as well. It is written for all types of landowners and others interested in riparian management, and is designed to accompany the Riparian Health Assessment Field Workbooks. How is the water you drink related to a cattail growing in your backyard? Are you concerned about the quality of water you're drinking? Did you know riparian areas can improve water quality? Click here to find out more about the link between riparian areas and water quality and what you can do to improve water quality. What do a white-tailed deer, tiger salamander, piping plover, and a brook trout have in common? Of course they're all species found right here in Alberta but another common thread, actually a green ribbon, ties all of these species together... click here to find out more. Are you curious what other communities in Alberta are doing in their riparian areas? What are people saying about working together on riparian issues? Is there any good news in the agriculture industry? Our Community Stories fact sheet series highlights the "good news stories" of some local communities. Click here to look over the fence at what some of your neighbours are doing. Want to find out what the health of your riparian area is? Check out our new Alberta Riparian Health Assessment and Inventory Forms and User Manuals. We also offer workshops and training sessions in using the Riparian Health Assessments for streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands. 
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© 2007 Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society: Cows and Fish. All rights reserved.
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