“The water sustainability session showcased how partnerships, collaboration, innovation and integration are helping local governments apply a water-centric lens to make the best choices,” explained Pia Nagpal.
“Living Water Smart, BC’s Water Plan and the Green Communities Initiative must be viewed as an integrated package. Living Water Smart presents the vision, and the Green Communities Initiative provides enabling tools to achieve the vision. Together they represent a call to action,” stated Kim Stephens.
The forum promoted moving beyond pilot projects to a watershed-based approach to achieving performance targets for rainwater management and green infrastructure. “We envisioned that the Surrey Forum would be a transformational event and a catalyst for action. One of our goals is to implement an educational program in Metro Vancouver that would be modelled on the Vancouver Island Learning Lunch Series,” stated Raymond Fung.
The technical program for the 2009 BC Ground Water Association Convention included a session on water sustainability so that the groundwater community would be informed about provincial initiatives underway in BC, and the implications for groundwater. “In speaking to a groundwater-oriented audience, my objective was to connect the dots between land development activities and groundwater protection,” stated Kim Stephens.
“The vision is that the Showcasing Innovation Series can play an integrating role to cut across disciplines and ultimately serve as a catalyst to create Ministry of community development – dale wall, deputy minister neighbourhoods that integrate both good planning and innovative engineering designs, for overall greater sustainability….environmental, social and economic,” stated Dale Wall.
“Sustainable water management in BC is an important priority. The purpose of the workshops was to share information and explore opportunities for advancing water governance,” stated Lynn Kriwoken. ““Productive dialogue on challenges and solutions were the central focus of the workshops.”
“The roundtable discussion was a direct request from the provincial sponsor – Green Buildings BC – as they wanted to get a better understanding of costs and capacity around green buildings: from residential to commercial, institutional and government. The intent of this discussion was to get a cross-dialogue going on between builders, designers and the Province,” stated Vivian Dean.
“We organized the roundtable event to engage the major Vancouver Island developers in a conversation about the factors that facilitate or hinder their efforts to design, plan for and implement development incorporating Green Value Strategies on Vancouver Island,” said Jack Hall, REFBC Chair.
“For BC’s engineers, planners and environmental scientists, the need to adapt plans and projects to account for climate change has become critical,” stated Eric Bonham. “Three professional organizations have been working together to provide leadership on this issue.”
Vancouver Island is the pilot region for implementing Beyond the Guidebook: The New Business As Usual through a precedent-setting approach to continuing education for local government practitioners. “Each series comprises three sessions that provide an inter-departmental learning opportunity for collaborative exploration. Each series is conducted as a cumulative process, from philosophy to tools,” stated Kate Miller.
