The Niagara River Greenway is a corridor of places, parks, and landscapes that celebrates and interprets the natural, cultural, and recreational values of the Niagara River. The Niagara River Greenway Ecological Standing Committee (GESC) is a non-regulatory group with representatives for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, Tuscarora Nation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New York Power Authority, and Niagara Relicensing Environmental Coalition. Since 2009, GESC has distributed over $16 million from the New York Power Authority’s Greenway Ecological Fund to support sixty ecological enhancement projects implemented by about twenty unique not-for-profit organizations, research institutions, and municipalities. Many of these land protection, habitat restoration, stewardship, and research projects have been relatively small in cost and scale, and may not have been considered competitive for federal grant programs. However, taken together, GESC-supported projects are contributing substantially to the resilience of the Niagara River coastal zone and improving quality of life in local communities. This presentation will explore the cumulative ecological and cultural benefits of Greenway projects, which are easy to see but difficult to quantify. It will also present the GESC as a model for peaceful, consensus-based decision making by local knowledge holders with diverse perspectives.
