Beyond the Guidebook 2015: Nanaimo Region's Julie Pisani describes how their ‘Regional Team Approach is founded on Sustainable Partnerships’
Note to Reader:
Released in November 2015, Beyond the Guidebook 2015 is the third in a series that builds on Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia. It is a deliverable flowing from the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Educational Initiative. Five Regional Districts representing 75% of BC’s population are partners in the initiative: Nanaimo, Metro Vancouver, Capital Region, Cowichan Region and Comox Valley.
Convening for Action in the Nanaimo Region of Vancouver Island
Structured in four parts, ‘Beyond the Guidebook 2015’ is a progress report on how local governments on the east coast of Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland are ‘learning by doing’ to implement affordable and effective science-based practices.
Part D tells five regional stories, including that for the Nanaimo region. At the conclusion, Julie Pisani provided her reflections in the form of an op-ed on the ‘regional team approach’. She is the Program Coordinator for the Drinking Water & Watershed Protection (DWWP), an initiative of the Regional District of Nanaimo.
Sustainable Partnerships
“Water is a resource, but it is much more that that too. It is a life force; a spiritual force. If we are to ultimately succeed in our region in managing our actions on the land so that we may protect and preserve our water, we must sustain partnerships that collectively make us much more effective together than in isolation,” wrote Julie Pisani.
“We have started building relationships in an effort to foster trust and collaboration, and it always starts with stories. Conversations about what we care about, stories about the past which help us understand the present, and dialogue about the future and positive vision about what that may look like.”
To Learn More:
To download a copy of Beyond the Guidebook 2015, click on this link: https://waterbucket.ca/viw/files/2015/11/Beyond-Guidebook-2015_final_Nov.pdf
To download a copy of the complete op-ed by Julie Pisani, click on Our ‘Regional Team Approach’ is founded on ‘Sustainable Partnerships’