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“Politicians know how to get elected. But do they know all that other stuff that they need to know? To ask the tough questions, you must be informed and educated about what matters. To be a better, more effective decision maker, you have to understand how things work so that your decisions are in context with other issues. A lot of what happens depends on the leadership, both political and at the staff level. You need BOTH to work. You need the politicians to lead, and you need staff to help educate and bring the politicians along and get good policy,” stated Darrell Mussatto.

“We need both a mindset change and an attitude switch to get through times of crisis. Blue Ecology points the way to water reconciliation between cultures…and with nature. Everyone seems to be focused on Artificial Intelligence, computers and the wonders of all that. But on our doorstep all along is Natural Intelligence. It is ignored because it is not understood,” stated Michael Blackstock. “Look beyond AI to solve your problems. There is this vast amount of wisdom out there that Indigenous peoples have seen forever…and that is Natural Intelligence.”

“Local governments need data that is meaningful for infrastructure asset management, but quality and usefulness have emerged as issues of paramount concern. Before collecting data, make sure you ask the right questions,” states Kim Stephens. “Be clear on why data is needed. What is the desired outcome? How will you use the information or data? Will it help you make better decisions? How much and what kind of data do you actually need? Does the cost meet the test of being affordable and effective? What are the tradeoffs between risk, complexity and cost?”

“When you think of the issues we face today…weather extremes, drying rivers, degraded streams, frequent wildfires, population growth, housing affordability…they are no different than they were 30 years ago. They are just more complex and more urgent. The Georgia Basin Initiative encouraged us to see the bioregion as an integrated whole, to understand that land, air, water, people, animals and fish are all interconnected. Viewing our growth challenges through this more wholistic lens will give us the best chance to monitor progress,” stated Joan Sawicki.

Robert Hicks, a career engineer-planner in local government, has an experience-based perspective on the impacts of changes to the landscape. His career achievements include co-creating the “streams and trees component” of the existing Integrated Liquid Waste and Resource Management Plan for the Metro Vancouver region. “At the time, the value of managing drainage on a watershed basis within a broad framework of land management and ecosystem planning was not yet apparent. Research on stream health at the University of Washington changed all this,” stated Robert Hicks.

“The story of my forest hydrology research over the past 30 years is actually a traumatizing story. Most of the landscapes in British Columbia and most of our watersheds are sitting at a very heightened risk when it comes to hydrology and geomorphology. The risks are greater than we were led to believe by government, industry, and professionals. But scholars in the philosophy of science will tell you that scientists will never admit to erroneous precedents. An eminent scientist once said, science progresses one funeral at a time,” stated Dr. Younes Alila.

“Bringing together and inspiring people, especially those in the trenches, to keep fighting the good fight,” stated Ray Fung. “That is basically what we did in the 2000s and continue to do! How do you judge that time with the advantage of hindsight? It is always a confluence of different things.” In the 2000s, the Green Infrastructure Partnership played a prominent role in leading changes in local government attitudes in the Metro Vancouver region. This influence cascaded from elected representative at Municipal Council and Regional Board tables to practitioners in the trenches.

“In the 2000s, we understood that we were going to have to do cities quite differently if we wanted to achieve the sustainability goals that we had set for ourselves. The Province passed the Regional Growth Strategies Act in 1994. This brought back a regional planning structure after BC had been without one for 10 years or so. The intent of the legislation was regional planning across a whole range of values. It was my job to implement regional growth management. We had not done something like that before. It was much more than pure land use planning,” stated Dale Wall.

“The 1990s was a very heady time in government in terms of land use planning and natural resource management. Some initiatives were not implemented all that well, but the Georgia Basin Initiative was the exception. “Launched in 1994, it did exactly what it was intended to do, Moreover, even though it only existed as an entity for a couple of years, it spawned a whole number of other initiatives and programs, some of which blossomed and still exist today,” stated Joan Sawicki, Parliamentary Secretary for the Georgia Basin Initiative during the period 1994-1996.

“Students are always looking for projects where they can make a difference. The idea was how can we bring more science into development to make a difference. I have always looked for people who are within the system but want to make a change. They are the leaders. And if we can contribute some science to these leaders, they can make the difference, not us. All we do is provide the data. And so, connecting with Richard Boase in the 1990s was really fundamental because he is on the inside,” stated UBC’s Dr. Hans Schreier.