Moraine Watch
Moraine Watch is a first-in-kind reporting and mapping tool that leverages community actors and local knowledge to identify and mobilize against land use planning that violates the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and its associated Act. Through this, STORM Coalition helps ensure that the spirit and intent of the original protections put in place for the Moraine are honoured, protecting this vital landform for generations to come.
Community Monitoring for the Oak Ridges Moraine
Moraine Watch is STORM's community-based monitoring program. It empowers residents, local organizations, and environmental advocates to help identify and track development activity, land-use changes, and environmental concerns across the Oak Ridges Moraine.
By combining local knowledge with mapping technology, Moraine Watch helps ensure that changes occurring on the Moraine are visible, documented, and understood. Community members become the eyes and ears on the ground, helping to protect one of Southern Ontario's most important landscapes.
Why Moraine Watch Matters
The Oak Ridges Moraine faces growing pressures from urban expansion, infrastructure projects, aggregate extraction, and shifting environmental policies. While the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan provides important protections, ongoing monitoring is essential to ensure those protections are respected and effectively implemented.
Today, there is no single independent body dedicated to tracking development activity and environmental impacts across the entire Moraine. Moraine Watch helps fill that gap by connecting communities, experts, and local organizations in a shared effort to monitor change and promote accountability.
The Moraine Watch tool helps STORM and concerned parties across the Moraine:
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Monitor development and land-use changes
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Share information and local knowledge
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Identify emerging environmental concerns
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Support evidence-based advocacy
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Strengthen community engagement and stewardship
The map can be used to explore development activity and areas of interest, search for specific locations on the Moraine, submit observations or concerns directly to STORM, and help build a community record of environmental change.
If you notice a development proposal, land-use change, or environmental concern, simply select the location on the map and submit a report. Our team will review the information and determine appropriate follow-up actions. You can also view the interactive tutorial below on how to navigate and use the Moraine Watch mapping tool.
Moraine Watch History
Moraine Watch originated through the Monitoring the Moraine (MTM) Project, a partnership between STORM and EcoSpark dedicated to collecting and tracking environmental information across the Oak Ridges Moraine. The original program provided communities with the tools and resources needed to understand, monitor, and support implementation of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan. Volunteers played a critical role by tracking development activity and helping ensure planning decisions aligned with conservation policies.
While the program achieved significant success, the technology required to support large-scale monitoring was expensive and difficult for environmental organizations to maintain. As a result, active monitoring efforts gradually paused.
Today, advances in mapping technology and community engagement tools have created an opportunity to revive and modernize the program. Moraine Watch builds on the foundation established by the original initiative while creating new ways for residents, organizations, and experts to work together in protecting the Moraine.
