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When Mike Harcourt was Premier, a defining moment was the launch of the transformational Georgia Basin Initiative in 1994. At a recent forum hosted by the Partnership for Water Sustainability, Mike Harcourt said: “In my experience, ideas and initiatives ebb and flow. You just have to take the long view and remain committed to passing on the knowledge that comes from experience. I would like to put a call to action on the record to do with land use planning and ecological and economic sustainability. We need to integrate all the disparate changes now taking place.”

“As Parliamentary Secretary, I had a visionary document and strong personal support from Minister Marzari at the top,” stated Joan Sawicki. “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! Most of my work was just going out to communities. We were a very small staff – Judith Cullington, Charmaine Hall, and Brent Mueller. We were a small group but, with Erik’s energy and access to just about everybody everywhere, he created the illusion of something much larger.”

“Twenty years ago, we went live with the waterbucket.ca website. We profile those who do good work in the spirit of Living Water Smart. This is a big reason why waterbucket.ca has become the place where people go to look for information on water. We have the communication platform. We give the champions a voice. We are getting the stories of the Living Water Smart champions out there. This validates what they are doing. That is a public service that the Partnership is able to do because we have an independent communications platform,” stated Mike Tanner.

“Unless you have legislation that tells you what the important requirements are, it is very hard to go forward. Legislation drives scientific questions; in turn, science informs legislation. It is not a one-time thing, but rather iterative. The science forward approach which some academics advocate is a good idea but has practical challenges. One of the challenges with science forward is if it is not legislated, it is not a priority for government. Also, you do not know what the hydrologic values are going to be 30 years from now. So it is very hard to figure out what questions to ask,” stated Mike Wei.

“Without deep knowledge and an understanding of history, proposed courses of action may be unimplementable. The loss of big picture thinking is reflected in the way larger organizations are siloed. Their focus is on immediate mandates and on managing budgets and staffing. When you talk to the right people, they do see the big picture and how everything connects. And yet, when it comes into the actual realm of application, it is so much easier for them to apply something when it is chopped up and put into silos. And in the process, they lose sight of the big picture,” stated Robert Hicks.

The Partnership for Water Sustainability’s Watershed Moments Award honours the memory of the late Rob Lawrance, former Environmental Planner with the City of Nanaimo. Just like Rob did throughout his career, Jody Watson champions the embedding of ecosystem values within Capital Regional District municipal planning, processes and projects, “The award draws attention to the vision for connecting people and place by recognizing the passion and commitment of those who excel in contributing to the success of the Watershed Moments idea and vision,” stated Eric Bonham.

“The vision for EAP set the challenge: develop a practical methodology, one that would be relevant to local government managers and the community, for determining the monetary value of drainage infrastructure and other services drawn (or adapted) to some degree from ecosystems. Initially, we saw EAP as a tool – that is, the EA Protocol – that would help practitioners calculate the opportunity cost of balancing ecological services with drainage infrastructure. However, the first demonstration applications revealed that the term EA Process more accurately describes the challenge of working with multiple intervenors,” stated Tim Pringle.

The process is in motion to operationalize a transition strategy over a 3-year period and initially embed the Ecological Accounting Process (EAP) program in the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region Research Institute (MABRRI). “We believe that incorporating students from Vancouver Island University and other universities will support understanding and experience within municipal governments on the importance of EAP, and simply understanding EAP. Fortunately, most of VIU’s Master of Community Planning, and Master GIS students find themselves working within municipal governments,” stated Graham Sakaki.

“By focusing on the distinction between a PLAN and a STRATEGY, the article by Wally Wells goes to the heart of output-oriented versus outcome-oriented approaches. The issue of ‘output versus outcome’ is one that the provincial government first identified two decades ago when it released Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia. The Guidebook premise is that a focus on desired outcomes would lead to action, whereas a focus on output leads to ‘analysis paralysis’. Living Water Smart in British Columbia is outcome oriented,” stated Kim Stephens.

“As a metaphor for hope. the continuum idea allows us to answer the question, how well are we doing? The green infrastructure continuum is the way we measure progress to achieve the Living Water Smart vision for creating liveable communities and protecting stream health. The lynchpin for achieving these ‘design with nature’ outcomes is intergenerational collaboration, driven by systems thinking. Hope springs from a systematic and adaptive approach that builds on a solid foundation, and consistently gets it right. The ramifications of this new reality create a sense of urgency,” stated Kim Stephens.