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Kim Stephens quoted the author Eva Kras: “Our present global and societal problem is that short-term thinking governs much of what we do. In many organizations, the long-term view has somehow become excluded over many generations. We need to re-learn basically ‘how we think’, using both the right (long-term) and left (short-term) hemispheres of our brain. Both are important, but the sad part is that we have convinced ourselves that the Left Hemisphere can do EVERYTHING.”

“Inter-governmental collaboration and funding enable the Partnership for Water Sustainability to develop approaches, tools and resources; as well as provide teaching, training and mentoring. We depend on the goodwill of elected representatives on committees such as Metro Vancouver’s Utilities Committee to provide political support for the unique bridging role that the Partnership plays in the local government setting. Their long-term support has contributed to the effectiveness of the Partnership as the hub for a ‘convening for action’ network,” stated Kim Stephens.

“The ‘regional team approach’ is founded on partnerships and collaboration; and seeks to align actions at three scales – provincial, regional and local,” stated Kim Stephens. “We use the word collaboration a lot in British Columbia. And it means something to us. But in other parts of the world, my experience is that they don’t really understand our ‘top-down, bottom-up’ approach. It may take us longer to get there, but collaboration is how we get to the destination.”

“Our region is hemmed in by the mountains, the sea, the US border and the Agricultural Land Reserve. This means population growth will be accommodated through redevelopment, and this involves redevelopment of watersheds. This is what gives us the second chance to get it right,” stated Kim Stephens. “As the housing stock turns over, there is a window of opportunity. We get one window every 50 years. Will local government take action in time?”

A national conference held in Queensland provided Kim Stephens with a platform for reflecting on ‘parallel journeys’ during the period 2001 through 2016. “The Rising to the Challenge conference was a milestone event. Because Australian practitioners are at a fork in their journey, they are looking to learn from BC experience. They are curious about our “whole systems” approach to water balance management,” observed Kim Stephens. “BC is moving from asset management to ‘sustainable service delivery’, with a focus on protecting the ‘water balance services’ that a watershed system provides.”

“In British Columbia, we have this unique model called top-down, bottom-up. It is the synthesis that results when you have an over-arching provincial policy framework and then all the players embrace shared responsibility,” stated Kim Stephens. “If we can change the ethic, so that the land ethic becomes the water ethic, then the key is establishing precedents for doing things differently. Once you establish the precedents for designing with nature, then they can be replicated in other communities.”

The keynote address was a co-presentation by Kim Stephens and Ted van der Gulik of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC. “Licensing 20,000 wells initially seemed daunting when a provincial group met in mid-2015 to brainstorm an approach to this immense task. The team had to solve the challenge of HOW to help groundwater users reliably quantify their annual water licence volumes. Suffice to say, the brainstorming resulted in an Aha Moment and a solution took shape,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

“The Rising to the Challenge conference was a milestone event. Because Australian practitioners are at a fork in their journey, they are looking to learn from BC experience. They are curious about our ‘whole systems’ approach to water balance management,” stated Kim Stephens. “I introduced Australians to three ‘big ideas’ that underpin where we are heading in BC, namely: Primacy of Hydrology, Shifting Baseline Syndrome, and Cathedral Thinking. My due diligence in preparing for the keynote address involved interviewing a cross-section of ‘water thought leaders’ from across Australia.”

Communities would benefit from shifting their definitions of community infrastructure to include entire watersheds. “We invited Kim Stephens to be our lead speaker because we’re very interested in the work that he and the Partnership are doing around asset management and sustainable watersheds,” explained the City of Campbell River’s Sara Brodie. She is on the APEGBC Municipal Engineering Division executive. Restoring hydrologic integrity, and thus the water balance, is key to a water-resilient future, emphasized Kim Stephens in his remarks.

“The project ‘Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management’ describes a whole-system, water balance approach to community development and infrastructure servicing,” stated Kim Stephens. “As understanding grows, local governments will progress incrementally along the Asset Management Continuum for Sustainable Service Delivery. Step Three is Sustainable Watershed Systems. My objective in meeting with SILG was to plant seeds. Six months from now we will see whether and/or how the seeds have taken root.”