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Ecological Accounting Process

    EAP, THE ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNTING PROCESS: “In 2025, the Partnership for Water Sustainability exported the EAP content to a new standalone community-of-practice,” stated Kim Stephens, Executive Director


    “Beyond the Guidebook 2015 concludes with the concept of Twin Pillars of Stream System Integrity. One pillar is Water Balance Accounting and the other is Ecological Accounting. In 2015, we introduced EAP as an idea whose time had come. We linked it to asset management because viewing the watershed through an asset management lens shines the spotlight on why ‘cost avoidance’ is a driver for local governments to require that land development practices mimic the Water Balance. A decade later, it was time for a dedicated EAP home on waterbucket.ca,” stated Kim Stephens.

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    EAP, THE ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNTING PROCESS: “Communities rarely manage streams as ecological systems; rather they are sliced and diced to suit land development objectives,” stated Tim Pringle, EAP Chair and adjunct professor at Vancouver Island University


    “Nature is a system, you cannot slice and dice it. When streams are sliced and diced, consequences follow – erosion, flood damage, loss of property enjoyment, diminished aquatic habitat. There will be no stream to produce ecological services if land use intensity destroys riparian conditions. EAP provides a number that communities need to include streams in budgets for asset management and tackle Riparian Deficits. EAP builds on the ‘big idea’ that use and conservation of land are equal values. EAP provides a value picture of a stream system as a land use,” stated Tim Pringle.

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    EAP, THE ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNTING PROCESS: “EAP is at a logical point to evolve … to become valuable to planners and council members as well as to engineers. By evolving, EAP will support stewardship organizations as well,” stated Tim Pringle


    “The starting point for EAP is Natural Asset Management. We are taking a spatial approach. We deal with parcels which is as spatial as you can get. We need readers to understand that in order for EAP to be real to them. It lets local governments know the financial value of their streams as a Natural Commons Asset. Next, we are moving EAP from a primary emphasis on Asset Management to use by planners for spatial analysis related to streams and trees. As we evolve EAP through more projects, we will be able to say here are rules of thumb for planners,” stated Tim Pringle.

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    ASSET MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE SERVICE DELIVERY: “My passion is about driving positive change. Being committed to goals. Setting long-term objectives. And committing to those until they are delivered. That is what gets these big items over the finish line,” stated Melony Burton, Manager of Infrastructure Planning with the City of Port Coquitlam


    Melony Burton’s actions in driving positive change are guided by her no-nonsense approach to keeping it simple, practical and implementable. She is results-based and has a history of accomplishment with three local governments. Her responsibilities encompass the entire infrastructure portfolio. “I have leveraged my career into a position that allows me to have more influence and positive change. This came, in part, from channeling the frustration at being limited in the role I was in. When you are comfortable, you are not motivated to make a change,” explains Melony Burton.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “By 2010, we were beyond the innovation stage. The prevailing attitude was let’s get it done. We were action-oriented,” stated Ray Fung, a retired Director of Engineering in local government, and former Chair of the Green Infrastructure Partnership


    “And then something happened. We just seemed to lose momentum in the 2010s. With the benefit of hindsight, others have made the same observation. We got bogged down in the implementation plan. We just talked about the burden on local governments from all the capital items that were arising from the completion of integrated stormwater management plans. Coincidentally, this was just as the region’s needs became dominated by transportation, transit, active transportation and cycling. And then we were hit by the pandemic in 2020 and this huge retirement wave,” stated Ray Fung.

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    REGIONAL GROWTH STRATEGIES FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES: “In the 2000s, we understood that we were going to have to do cities quite differently if we wanted to achieve the sustainability goals that we had set for ourselves. And that was going to require substantial degrees of innovation,” stated Dale Wall, former Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs


    “As a matter of policy, the Province was quite deliberate in the sense that we wanted to push the boundaries of how municipal infrastructure was developed. We knew that we were going to have to do this under pretty strict fiscal constraints. And so that is why innovation became so important. We used the slogan The New Business As Usual to convey the message that, for change to really occur, practices that until then had been viewed as the exception must become the norm moving forward. With the new grant programs, we had some funding to support innovation,” stated Dale Wall.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “There are initiatives and programs flourishing today that had their beginnings in the Georgia Basin Initiative,” stated Joan Sawicki, land and resource management champion, and former provincial cabinet minister


    “And isn’t that how turning that supertanker of thinking happens? Just incrementally, then by gosh, we end up going in a whole different direction than we were when we started,” stated Joan Sawicki, Parliamentary Secretary for the Georgia Basin Initiative. Launched in 1994, the GBI was a call to action by the provincial government led by Premier Mike Harcourt. The living legacy of the GBI is embedded in and embodied by the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Educational Initiative. The IREI is now in Year 13 and provides peer-based education among local governments.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “In the mid-1990s, I embarked on applied research that has defined my career with the District of North Vancouver. UBC’s Hans Schreier inspired me,” stated Richard Boase, career environmental champion within local government in the Metro Vancouver region


    “When I look back at our history, I think wow, how did we do so much applied research. We had a need and Hans Schreier had grad students who were interested in doing the research. Win-win,” stated Richard Boase. “This research was in pursuit of making changes to the fabric of our urbanized areas. I was so encapsulated by what I saw around me, and the need for change, that my mind was always racing. And I needed to find ways to do research into what we were talking about.”

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    EAP, THE ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNTING PROCESS, IS AN EXPRESSION OF BLUE ECOLOGY: “Both are all about a restorative framework and mindset. This means restoring the interconnectivity and function of natural systems in a way that truly represents their importance,” stated Richard Boase, career environmental champion within local government


    “We must do a better job of protecting streams. I am in a position now to reflect on this because I believe I have earned that right over the course of a 30-year career. Given how much I have seen, done and been exposed to in my local government career, it is fair for me to reflect on what has happened and comment on why local governments have not been as successful as we would have wanted. But we must focus on the path forward so that we protect or enhance stream systems in the built environment,” stated Richard Boase.

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    DESIGN WITH NATURE TO CREATE LIVEABLE COMMUNITIES AND PROTECT STREAM HEALTH: “Replacement of curb-and-gutter with a blue link rain garden is a perfect illustration of integration in action. I said to staff just do it,” stated Ramin Seifi, former General Manager of engineering and planning with Langley Township in the Metro Vancouver region


    Langley’s approach to achieving water balance through green Infrastructure evolved as successive neighbourhoods were built over the past two decades. In the beginning, the focus for Green Infrastructure was on what could be achieved within greenways. Langley staff then turned their attention to rain gardens. Building on their history of successes, their next evolution was implementation of “blue links”, which is another name for rain gardens. The blue link is symbolic of the transformational change which has taken root in the Township in the 21st century as designing with nature became the ‘new normal’.

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