Category:

“Living Water Smart creates the opportunity or potential for real dramatic change at a local level. Good policy is knowing where the horizon is, so that you know where you want to get to. Success depends on cooperation across jurisdictional boundaries. The more we can align local actions with provincial targets, the greater our chances of success. We must hold the provincial government accountable too. They have given us the long-term vision; and we are looking to them to be accountable for the support that we now need,” stated Ron Neufeld in 2008. He died in 2025 at age 60.

“I have been doing collective impact work in the community for more than 10 years. It takes time, it really does. It is only NOW that it is really starting to have a profound impact on some of the other initiatives that we are doing. It is really hard to do really hard work unless you trust and have a relationship with the people doing the work.We know it takes a sustained effort and a sustained backbone or people at the helm to drive it. And so, for this big climate gathering piece, we are at hello! But some of the work behind it is decades in,” stated Cindy Lise.

“I see myself as merely a narrator speaking about a shared experience that we all had in planning the Cowichan Region Climate Gathering. We just know that ultimately, the network of networks can help us to work together towards a common vision,” stated Keith Lawrence. “It was recognized from the beginning how important it would be to ground the event in the traditional ways of the local First Nations communities and people in the region. And we recognized that we needed to have this big space discussion about climate action to connect a network of networks within the region.”