 Canada's river conservation program was not established by statute, but is instead a cooperative arrangement between Canada's ten provinces and three territories establishing a fifteen-member (appointed) Canadian Heritage Rivers board, to which participating members nominate rivers to be designated as heritage rivers, for which river management plans building on existing statutory powers are prepared, agreed, and endorsed.The French River in Ontario was the first river to be designated a heritage river, in 1986, and since then 40 rivers have been designated across Canada