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Georgia Basin Initiative

    DOWNLOAD A COPY: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Counterbalance Artificial Intelligence with Natural Intelligence!” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in February 2025)


    “Natural Intelligence is an idea that resonates because it is intuitively obvious. I believe it is that simple. Natural Intelligence is another angle on interweaving Western science and Indigenous knowledge because it explores what Indigenous knowledge is based on. Blue Ecology is a Natural Intelligence approach. Natural Intelligence is a form of Indigenous wisdom…which is knowledge of Natural Intelligence and how to live with it and how to be harmonious with it,” stated Michael Blackstock.

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    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Knowing what we know about the past three decades, the re-set is not as simple as going from an X to a tick mark in each column of the table of cascading factors,” stated Ray Fung, a past-chair of the Green Infrastructure Partnership


    Nine cascading factors that must be in alignment to implement a course correction. At the top of the list of cascading factors is political leadership and commitment to the shared vision. Leadership boils down to a willingness to act and bring together other champions willing to provide the type of energy and organizational drive that overcomes inertia. “The current reality is that you have to build new political commitment and basically start all over again in a new crucible phase…where you coalition-build to develop a new shared vision, etc.,” stated Ray Fung.

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    WILL 2025 BE THE YEAR OF THE RE-SET AS DECISION-MAKERS BUILD ON LESSONS FROM THE PAST? – “Deep knowledge is rapidly being lost. Organizational amnesia is the consequence, and this creates risks and liabilities for communities,” stated Kim Stephens of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in the season opener for Waterbucket eNews


    “Re-set means implement a course correction so that governments would maintain and manage engineered and natural assets as interconnected components within a system that includes the people who live there. What would success look like? At a high level, the community writ large would buy-in to the need and financial case for funding SOLUTIONS THAT ARE AFFORDABLE, EFFECTIVE AND PRAGMATIC. That is the point of departure for setting in motion changes that are for the common good,” stated Kim Stephens.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia Will 2025 be the year of the re-set?” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in January 2025


    “Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged – will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort,” stated Robert Kennedy in 1966. Considered his greatest speech, it popularized the phrase ”may you live in interesting times”. The phrase is ironic because “interesting” times are usually times of trouble.

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    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Meeting Metro Vancouver’s urgent housing demand is exactly the sort of situation for which we developed the regional growth strategies legislation in the 1990s,” stated Mike Harcourt, former Premier of British Columbia whose leadership made possible the Growth Strategies Act (5th installment in a preview series)


    “How do we manage the number of people that are moving into the Georgia Basin when we have a very tough geography where the urban space is pretty limited by the sea and the mountains, and by rivers and agricultural land and park wilderness. When you take all that out, there is not a lot of land for urban development and an urban population. Cities are all about choices. much will depend upon getting the choices right,” stated Mike Harcourt.

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    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Local governments need a real number based on financial value if they want to get natural assets into their management plans on a regular basis. EAP gives them that,” stated Tim Pringle, Chair of the Ecological Accounting Process (EAP)


    “The question we asked was, how do you find that number? Well, we can treat a stream as a land use because we have the Riparian Areas Protection Regulation and we have BC Assessment for land values. The rest of it is the methodology that does the right calculation. Local governments have a spatial way of looking at land use. EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, is a spatial view because the methodology is keyed to parcels which is as spatial as you can get. EAP allows local governments to explore the financial impact of land development choices,” stated Tim Pringle.

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    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Erik Karlsen was the secret sauce who convened the fantastic streamside regulation discussions that created collegiality between municipalities,” recalls Susan Haid, adjunct assistant professor at the University of BC


    Susan Haid has played a leadership role in trailblazing an ecosystem-based approach to community planning in British Columbia, first with the City of Burnaby and then with Metro Vancouver. This approach also took root in her subsequent experience in the District of North Vancouver and the City of Vancouver. “In many ways, what I am teaching comes back to the same kind of framework around ecosystem-based planning which Erik Karlsen and others were advancing in the 1990s, and which is synonymous with watershed-based planning,” stated Susan Haid.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Cities are all about choices” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in November 2024


    “In 1992, I asked the BC Roundtable on the Economy and Environment to investigate the challenge of growth from a bioregional perspective. The idea for the Georgia Basin Initiative was seeded in their report titled Georgia Basin Initiative: Creating a Sustainable Future. The Roundtable findings were clear. We need to act quickly to avoid the situation faced by other large urbanizing regions, where unmanaged growth is degrading the environment and lowering the overall quality of life for the people who live there,” stated former premier Mike Harcourt.

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    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “When we showed the picture of the Riparian Forest Integrity versus Total Impervious Area relationship to the Metro Vancouver Board, they agreed that things had to change. Things will get worse if we do not change our ways,” stated Robert Hicks, career engineer-planner in local government


    “The federal and provincial representatives advocated for a new business as usual regarding downstream flooding of agricultural lands and fish habitat preservation. The priorities were hydrology and riparian forest canopy which is why we involved Rich Horner of the University of Washington in our watershed assessment and classification work in the late 1990. The research team tested a system using 19 streams that were representative of physiography and land development patterns in the region. In 1999, the majority of streams were in the FAIR and POOR categories,” stated Robert Hicks.

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    DOWNLOAD A COPY OF: “Living Water Smart in British Columbia: Land planning perspective for liability reduction along streams” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in November 2024


    “The starting point for EAP is Natural Asset Management. It lets local governments know the financial value of their streams as a Natural Commons Asset. EAP is a spatial view because the methodology is keyed to parcels which is as spatial as you can get. The EAP process allows local governments to transcend the numbers and explore the financial impact of land development choices. And it is also about solutions. Planners have a spatial way of looking at land use. So, I imagine that they would like to have a means of understanding a stream from a spatial point of view,” stated Tim Pringle.

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