Archive:

“Prior to becoming a member of the Regional Board, I was well aware of the DWWP program and that the watershed is a fundamental management unit. The effectiveness of the community outreach by the team led by Julie Pisani made the DWWP a visible entity in the community. When I joined the Board, my focus was on updating the DWWP and making it a Strategic Plan priority. Because the updating and educational process for DWWP Action Plan 2.0 was so thorough, the entire Board had a clear understanding of why it was important and necessary,” stated Ben Geselbracht.

“Every time I review a development for environmental impacts, we identify that it is in the Bowker watershed, and we state what the Blueprint says about the subject reach. Also, whenever the municipality undertakes capital and maintenance projects, we make sure to refer to the Blueprint and state what it says. The good thing about this role is that the more that I do it, the more other people in the organization get the picture and say ’this is the document that we are going to use for this and that purpose’. And when it comes to interpreting the document, other staff come to me,” stated Adriane Pollard.

“After more than two decades of sustained effort by community leaders and local government champions, their shared vision to bring Bowker Creek back to life is close to becoming a reality. Recent decisions and actions have game-changing implications. In short, the Bowker vision is on the cusp of being a self-fulfilling prophecy. For all of these reasons, the Bowker Blueprint process is a beacon of inspiration. A thread that weaves through the Bowker storyline is the right people in the right place at the right time, over time.” stated Kim Stephens.

“In my mind, traditional knowledge and western science are just different ways of recording, or documenting, and communicating the same information. I believe there is an analogy between Indigenous oral history, and a statistical approach called Bayesian analysis,” stated Neil Goeller. “We are lucky when we have 60 years of reliable records, possibly extending out to 100-plus years. When I reflect on the short-term context for hydrometric data collection in BC, there is no doubt in my mind that Indigenous knowledge would expand our horizon and help us make sense of the numbers in a larger context.”

“I view Western science and Indigenous ways of knowing as sovereign entities. A great deal of energy goes into rationalizing, promoting, and protecting an epistemology. However, now we need to acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers. We can build a collaborative epistemological framework if we transcend sovereign contemporary narrative’s boundaries, and literally mine each epistemology for gems that can be interwoven in a collaborative manner. Curiosity about other cultures draws us into a better understanding,” stated Michael Blackstock.