“CAVI – Leadership in Water Sustainability” is a program initiative on Vancouver Island, delivered under the umbrella of the Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia
Move from Awareness to Action
CAVI is the acronym for Convening for Action on Vancouver Island. Launched in 2006 at the Water in the City Conference, CAVI is an initiative of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, a not-for-profit society. The CAVI program is being delivered under the umbrella of the Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia.
From 2007 through 2011, the Province and Real Estate Foundation co-funded CAVI as a provincial demonstration initiative to develop local government talent. The CAVI program is sustained by the commitment of the Partnership leadership team and the hands-on involvement of Vancouver Island local government staff.
This Vancouver Island Water community-of-interest is the homepage for recording the CAVI history as it is created.
Regional Team Approach
“The Partnership is the hub for a ‘convening for action’ network in the local government setting. We are positioned to facilitate alignment of regional and local actions with provincial goals. We primarily work in the local government context, with a focus on community and regional planning systems, to influence uptake of strategies that will integrate decisions about use and conservation of land with water and watershed sustainability outcomes. The guiding philosophy is ‘design with nature’,” explains Tim Pringle, Partnership President.
“The Partnership brings together local governments, regulators, the stewardship community and business to address shared issues with consistent, workable solutions. We call this the regional team approach. The goal is to align actions at three scales – provincial, regional and local. Within each region, everyone needs to agree on expectations and how all the players will work together, and after that each partner community can reach its goals in its own way,” adds Kim Stephens, Partnership Executive Director.
“Collaboration, alignment and consistency up and down the east coast of Vancouver Island will create opportunities for everyone to be more effective; and to implement water and watershed sustainability goals in the context of existing budgets,” concludes John FInnie, CAVI Past-Chair (2006 – 2011). He is General Manager, Regional and Community Utilities, Regional District of Nanaimo.
