Strategic Plan 2016-2025

Sustaining the Place for Life

Our Vision

The Essex Region is a sustainable, resilient and vibrant place with healthy and thriving watersheds, Great Lakes and a green culture.

Our Mission

Improving our environment to enrich our lives.

Our region, not unlike any other area, is made up of places – where we live, where we work, where we gather and where we play. We give meaning to these places based on how we use them and appreciate them. We become attached to places that are important to us, and as a result, we have an obligation to protect and preserve those places. ERCA has a responsibility to help our region and our communities, by ensuring the places we live in provide clean water and landscapes, are protected from flooding and erosion and support healthy living through recreation and conservation. To do so, we have to consider how changes in our urban and rural landscapes impact our communities and region ecologically, by understanding the places we live in and the impacts of change in our region. The more we know about our region, the greater our attachment will be to it; the better we’ll be able to care for it and ultimately the greater our experiences will be of the Essex region as a place.

Our Strategic Directions

Our actions will continue to be guided by four overarching Strategic Directions:

1. Connect

Connect people to our landscapes, natural areas, trails, waterfronts and our Great Lakes. Connect and expand natural areas through acquisition, management, land use planning and habitat restoration.

2. Engage

Engage our community to increase awareness about the critical importance of a healthy and sustainable community through outreach and education.

3. Collaborate

To work collaboratively to strengthen and facilitate partnerships with all levels of government, our municipal partners, stakeholders and the public to create a future of sustainability through innovative land use planning and watershed management services.

4. Discover

To develop greater scientific knowledge to proactively address and respond to environmental challenges such as climate change, water quality and other threats to our sustainability.

Read the full Strategic Plan.