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Erik Karlsen had a remarkable impact on the shape of BC communities. For a generation of elected representatives, he was a familiar face in the local government setting. Erik Karlsen had an unparalleled network of connection with Georgia Basin communities – and most importantly, a high degree of trust with those communities. The legacy of Erik Karlsen is rippling through time through the work of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in leading the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Educational Initiative, successor to the Georgia Basin Initiative.

“Living Water Smart was a government commitment plan, 17 years ago with 50 commitments signed off by the government of the day. Many public servants have worked over many years to deliver on those commitments. But government administrations change, ministers change, priorities change, budgets change. That process carries on its own world. What matters is that the Living Water Smart story has stood the test of time and continues to resonate. Everybody pulled a piece of yarn out of that plan and knit a sweater,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

The waterbucket.ca community is about networking and collaboration and waterbucket.ca provides a platform for learning from each other through sharing of success stories. The 20th anniversary of the waterbucket.ca website is an opportunity for celebration as well as reflection. “The waterbucket.ca website is providing reasons to have the conversations about ‘why change’.The resulting awareness of need will help us obtain the mandate to implement watershed-based land use planning,” stated Marvin Kamenz, Director of Community Planning with the Town of Comox.

“The Ecological Accounting Process is about the condition and financial value of municipal stream assets that supply ecological services, Urban streams are rarely managed as ecological systems or as municipal assets. When local governments obtain a financial value for streams as spatial assets, they can include them in their asset management plans and budgets. EAP gives municipalities the methodology and metrics that will let them add streams to their asset management strategy,” stated Tim Pringle.

“The region’s continued health and sustainability demands that we treat it as one system, not as a composite of separate and jurisdictionally distinct entities. As Parliamentary Secretary for the Georgia Basin Initiative, I had a visionary document and strong personal support from Minister Marzari at the top. And I had Erik Karlsen’s on-the-ground connections with Basin communities and their issues. All I had to do was run with it, And that’s what we did!. The Georgia Basin Initiative was successful because we had the right people at the right time,” stated Joan Sawicki.

“The drought of 2015 suggests we may be crossing an invisible threshold into a different hydro-meteorological regime in Western North America,” stated Bob Sandford in 2015. Events have proven him to be right. Over the past decade, it has been one drought after another, dramatized by the extremes that impacted BC communities in 2021 and again in 2023. The mountainous nature of BC’s geography means that BC communities are typically storage-constrained, and what storage they do have is measured in months. This accentuates risks, uncertainties and vulnerabilities.

“The Melting Glaciers, Healthy Watersheds and You panel is about education and raising awareness. One of the foundational programs with the Whistler Lakes Conservation Foundation is our monitoring and reporting program. Monitoring and reporting aside, it is not just about the science. It is about people. We know we can’t manage what we don’t measure. That’s why quantitative lake data provide a baseline from which changes can be observed and acted on over time. However, we cannot always measure everything that matter,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

“If you are importing food, you are importing water. It is that simple. Also, our agricultural land in BC really is not as secure as everyone thinks. You can see all kinds of activities that do not support food production that are going on within the Agricultural Land Reserve. BC has two powerful tools for achieving food security. The Agricultural Land Use Inventory program is input to the Agriculture Water Demand Model. This is a powerful combination. These tools yield accurate data about agricultural land use and water need in all regions of BC,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

Many individuals have played important roles in the green infrastructure movement in British Columbia. But whose efforts have truly been make or break? Seven individuals stand out as first-order champions. They rose to the moment in ways that were complementary. They changed the game in profound ways when British Columbia was at forks in the road. Michael Geller is one of the seven whose leadership circa Year 2000 fuelled the early green infrastructure movement.A supporter of innovation, he put his stamp on the UniverCity sustainable community atop Burnaby Mountain

“The Cowichan Region Climate Gathering was an opportunity to celebrate the incredible climate action work in the region,” stated Cindy Lise. “The planning team aimed to strengthen the important relationships that allow us to build a stronger and more aligned collective approach to caring for our environment and increasing our resiliency to the changing world. There are many benefits to sharing, coordinating and collaborating in our own region, and the Cultural ways of being teach us that there is so much more that we could do.”