Living smarter, nurturing our Muskoka watershed

By Peter Sale | Saturday, December 20, 2025

Last spring, Muskoka Watershed Council commenced our third series of near-weekly articles, this one on the theme of Living Smarter. Now, 25 articles later, we bring that set to a close. We’ll start again in the new year with a new theme, Nurturing Our Watersheds, that will help us all make the transition from thinking of environment as a “thing” that we “manage” to appreciating the essential unity and complexity of the ecosystem we are an intrinsic part of. This new perspective helps us understand that we mostly manage human activities even if we continue to talk about “environmental” management.

Last April, I drew attention to our challenge — we want to retain our healthy natural environment while also continuing to grow our population and economy. Meeting that challenge requires significant changes in both our perspectives and in how we use Muskoka.

Our articles addressed concepts, attitudes and actions needed. Neil Hutchinson and Patricia Arney wrote about cumulative impacts and fire risk. Norman Yan suggested we should think like a lake, while being politically active. Geoff Ross and Jared Jylhä each tackled the links between economy and environment, while Kevin Trimble and I provided more news on the path toward integrated watershed management. We covered innovative building practices and ways to live our individual lives sustainably. Best of all, several authors gave personal accounts of how they tried to live smarter — there are many different ways to partner with nature while leading enriching lives in this special place.

Nurturing our watersheds intentionally contrasts with “managing” — it suggests a proactive, supportive approach that truly meets the needs of the watershed. Nurturing includes simple decisions to not undertake projects, large or small, that would unduly diminish the capacity of the watershed to thrive, but nurturing also includes actions to repair past environmental damage or strengthen resistance of the environment to ongoing pressures — using wood ash to replace lost calcium in our forests for example. And nurturing could include a co-ordinated effort to grant legal status, or personhood, to our watersheds, so they can defend their rights in our courts.

I first raised the issue of legal rights for the Muskoka River system on Canada Day, 2023. I raised the issue to see if I would be laughed clear out of Muskoka — what a ridiculous proposal. To my surprise, I was not. And the idea of rights for nature continues to gain respectability as a way to shift toward a more inclusive, ecologically responsible way of doing business around the world.

Just this year, a new book by the award-winning British author, Robert Macfarlane, is generating lots of discussion and likely some legal actions for particular rivers. Beautifully written, “Is a River Alive?” tackles the topic of rights for nature in a story of Macfarlane’s kayaking adventures on three very different rivers that have been granted such rights. One is the Magpie River, or Mutehekau-Shipu, in eastern Quebec, a 290-km free-flowing river that empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Magpie was granted legal personhood by Minganie municipality and by the Ekuanitshit Innu Council in 2021, and remains the only Canadian river so far recognized.

Why shouldn’t the Muskoka River Watershed be similarly recognized? Just as a board of directors acts to protect and advance the interests of a corporation, a board of formally appointed legal guardians or representatives would act to protect the watershed’s interests. By granting legal personhood we would confer on the watershed the power to defend itself in our courts and we would be acknowledging that our human activities can damage the environment, even when the damage does not impinge on the rights of any human resident.

In 2026, Muskoka Watershed Council will continue to explore bold, thoughtful, and sometimes unconventional ways to nurture our watersheds. Not because they are “weird,” but because the challenges we face demand creativity, courage and a willingness to be different. We invite you to stay curious and join us on this next step toward a healthier, more resilient Muskoka.

This article is No. 26 in the https://www.muskokaregion.com/ series on Living Smarter from Muskoka Watershed Council (MWC). Its author, and the series editor, is Peter Sale, retired aquatic ecologist, Muskoka resident, director and past chair of MWC, and someone who believes that our watersheds are a large part of what makes life worth living, every day.