Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority
Conservation authority in Ontario, Canada
Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority (ABCA) is a local conservation agency named in the Ontario Conservation Authorities Act. Located in Southern Ontario, the agency focuses on the conservation of the drainage basins of the Ausable River, Bayfield River, Parkhill Creek, and Gullies (Bayfield North and South Gullies) watersheds. The headquarters is located in Exeter, Ontario.
The ABCA manages conservation and wildlife areas that were purchased for the preservation and protection of source areas and flood plain areas. Some environmentally significant areas are not publicly accessible.
Hay Swamp Management Area is administered by the agency.
History
The former Ausable River Conservation Authority was formed in 1946. There were local conservation organizations in Ontario before ABCA, and some others formed around the same time, but Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority lays claim to being Ontario's first conservation authority.
A community strategy group of 34 people met monthly between 2010 and 2011 to create a conservation strategy for the organization. This community group included local farmers; residents of rural, urban, and lakeshore communities in the watershed; municipalities; public health; youth; and other stakeholders.
The public source identifies “Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority” as conservation authority in Ontario, Canada. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ausable, Bayfield and Conservation.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority”, the useful work is to connect “conservation authority in Ontario, Canada” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q17514094. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2010 and 2011.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.