Convening for Action in British Columbia

DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Reflections on the 3-year transition strategy for embedding EAP at Vancouver Island University – Regional District of Nanaimo experience” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in October 2024

October 22, 2024 - Posted in ...2024, PUBLICATIONS & DOWNLOADS

Note to Reader:

Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on October 22, 2024 is the second installment in a 4-part series that showcases a successful precedent to pass the intergenerational baton and build long-term capacity within local government to implement Natural Asset Management.

Anna Lawrence, project coordinator for the EAP Transition Strategy Partnership is the guest editor for a conversation with Murray Walters, Manager of Water Services, about the Regional District of Nanaimo’s experience in advancing EAP.

An engineering perspective grounds Natural Asset Management

This edition is the second installment in a 4-part series that celebrates a unique partnership, one that is powering a pragmatic path forward for Natural Asset Management within the local government setting.

Supported financially by UBCM, three Vancouver Island local governments are founding members of the EAP Partnership which also includes the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region Research Institute (MABRRI), Vancouver Island University and the Partnership for Water Sustainability.

The vision is that the partnership will evolve into an EAP centre-of-excellence at VIU. In 2022, the partners committed to a 3-year transition strategy to embed EAP in MABRRI by doing three EAP projects each per year.

Watershed protection context

“The Regional District of Nanaimo is all-in with our participation,” explains Murray Walters. “We see EAP as a closely aligned initiative with the things that we promised to do in the 10-year work plan for the region’s Drinking Water & Watershed Protection Program. If not for the DWWP, in fact, that linkage would have been less likely to have happened in the first place.”

“As an organization, we need to get wiser about natural asset management. We need to be able to open people’s eyes about natural asset management in general and as an element of municipal infrastructure services.”

“We also need to open eyes more so to the financial side of what these natural assets contribute. And vice versa. How much financial aid we need to put into these assets to allow them to do that.”