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“With each new generation, your view of the world is based on the world as you see it now. Those images of ‘now’ are in your head. So, when change happens, you have no knowledge of what happened before you,” stated Kim Stephens. “Our approach in British Columbia is to say ‘hey, we can make a difference’. We have to think differently about how we develop on the land. The experience and tools that we are developing is key to reversing the trend and making things better.Communities can re-set the ecological baseline.”

The Comox Valley Conservation Partnership organized an Eco-Asset Symposium in March 2017. “The stewardship and conservation sector has traditionally focused on habitat restoration and protection of lands with high ecological values,” stated David Stapley. “With cumulative impacts from climate change, urban and resource development escalating, these groups have now become community leaders in educating and supporting improved land use practices.”

“Floods have become one of the most visible signs of the effects of climate change in cities, towns and rural areas throughout Canada,” stated David Suzuki. “The Insurance Bureau of Canada found one in five Canadians faces some level of flood risk, and 1.8 million households are at very high risk. Climate change–related events — including floods, drought and fires — are a drain on personal finances and the economy.”

“The science of stormwater management is catching up with the development that has occurred. That is the problem. We are playing catchup – and application of the science is lagging far behind long established established knowledge,” wrote Rick Baumann in a guest column. “As early as the 1940’s – when state poet laureate Archibald Rutledge published his classic book ‘Home by the River’, stormwater had been reeking havoc for quite some time.”

“Use of the Water Balance family of methods and tools will help local governments bring state-of-the-art hydrology into engineering standard practice,” stated Ted van der Gulik. “Our objective is to make it easy for local governments to establish, require and implement Water Balance performance targets. The methods and tools exist. It is a matter of enhancing them to support EAP (Ecological Accounting Protocol) plus expand their use.”

“The EAP approach begins by first recognizing the importance of a stream in a natural state and then asking: how can we maintain those ecological values while allowing the stream to be used for drainage,” states Jim Dumont. Benefits of the whole-system approach would include less flooding, less stream erosion, and more streamflow during dry weather when needed most.

“The Ecological Accounting Protocol is about specific values (pricing) – not imputed, generalized values,” wrote Tim Pringle. “Since cost-avoidance, at least perceived cost-avoidance, motivates much of the decision-making process about infrastructure, and development in general, why has the obvious role of natural assets been omitted to date? The Ecological Accounting Protocol suggests it is the lack of measurement.”

“The mini-summit commenced the branding process within British Columbia for use of the phrase ‘water for life and livelihoods’ to focus on what is at stake over both the short and long terms,” stated Erik Karlsen. “It was a presentation by Tim Pringle that introduced the “settlement in balance with ecology” principle to draw attention to a balanced approach to achieving social, environmental, economic well-being — with inclusive and accountable governance.”

“The emphasis in using the Ecological Accounting Protocol (EAP) would be on adaptive management design, rather than a prescriptive approach,” stated Kim Stephens. “The essence of EAP is that ‘Optimum Infrastructure Design = Watershed Health’. Optimum implies preserving hydrologic integrity plus achieving best opportunity-cost outcomes in the long-term. The watershed defines what goes into EAP.”

The Real Estate Foundation of BC hosted the Green Developers Roundtable at the 2008 Gaining Ground Summit. “We organized the roundtable event to engage the major Vancouver Island developers in a conversation about the factors that facilitate or hinder their efforts to design, plan for and implement development incorporating Green Value Strategies on Vancouver Island,” said Jack Hall, REFBC Chair at that time.