During the winter of 2011, The Attention FragÎles team met with approximately 300 Islanders to discuss shoreline erosion. Meetings were held in 13 Island townships between January and March, from Havre-Aubert to Grande-Entrée, including Entry Island. The "Tour of the Townships on Erosion" project aimed to:
1) Bring the Islands’ citizens together to hold conversations and to share their knowledge about the issue and better understand the phenomenon of erosion, its impacts, and inherent risks;
2) Engage citizens in a joint examination of the human factors that either aggravate or attenuate erosion and formulate concrete action proposals that address those factors;
3) Make sure dune restoration projects last in the long term by setting up committees and mobilizing citizens to participate in the restoration work.
The idea behind the township tour was to give citizens a voice and a chance to speak about this central theme for the archipelago's future. All those wishing to understand this phenomenon, talk about it, voice their ideas, and think about the causes and the solutions together joined us in these conversations. A presentation on the following elements was given at each of the meetings:
1) the phenomenon of erosion and its natural and human causes;
2) a mapping of local issues in each township that was visited;
3) currently available solutions to fight against coastal erosion with each solution’s pros and cons.
The citizens were then invited to share their experiences and how they perceived the evolution of the coastline over the years. We talked about the citizens' role, the authorities' responsibility and their expectations, and the option of creating committees to carry out some of the work. These meetings were also summarized to the mayor and councilors of the Municipality of the Magdalen Islands.
