Canada: Fraser basin

Abstract

Basin-scale institutions for water resource management have emerged relativelyrecently in the Fraser basin; the Fraser Basin Management Board was establishedonly in the early 1990s, to be succeeded in 1997 by the Fraser Basin Council. Thecase is of interest within this series of studies for three reasons: first, it adds anexample of nongovernmental river basin organization, whereas the other cases areof governmental or intergovernmental structures; second, the Fraser Basin Councilhas pursued a very broad scope of topics that its members see as related to an overallconcept of basin sustainability, which includes social and economic as well asenvironmental aspects; and third, the formation of the Fraser Basin Council (andits predecessor Basin Management Board) was a locally initiated action thatoccurred in the fairly recent memory of many individuals who are still activelyinvolved, and whose perspectives on the origin and evolution of the basin managementeffort are both fresh and rich.