Vancouver Island Water

banner

Tag:

living water smart bc

    COWICHAN REGION CLIMATE GATHERING IN DECEMBER 2024: “The network of networks within the Cowichan region is like a forest ecosystem in a way. There are connections happening in these networks that are beyond what we can fully characterize,” stated Keith Lawrence, lead person from the Cowichan Valley Regional District and co-moderator


    “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.”

    Read Article

    GEORGIA BASIN INTER-REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE: “There is hope because we are seeing renewed interest by local governments to talk about how to operationalize Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery,” stated Arnold Schwabe, Executive Director with Asset Management BC


    Arnold Schwabe’s focus is on what local governments are supposed to do. Too often, he observes, councils do not understand the purposes and function of local government. “When I receive requests to talk to elected officials,” he says, “that opens the door for me to help them understand that their job is about the service not the assets. Downloading is a real issue and local governments are frustrated with the Province. I say that from the perspective of someone whose career experience over 35 years includes working for and with all three levels of government.”

    Read Article

    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Technical people have to demonstrate cost-effectiveness in order to transform political acceptability into political will to implement change and spend money,” stated Barry Janyk (1952-2024), former 4-term mayor of Gibsons & moderator for the SmartStorm Forum Series (1999-2001)


    The context for the Partnership for Water Sustainability celebrating the life of Barry Janyk is the Smartstorm Forum Series. This transformational series fueled a movement and galvanized an ecosystem-based approach to rainwater management and green infrastructure within the Georgia Basin bioregion of southwestern British Columbia. Barry Janyk, who was then mayor of Gibsons, infused the SmartStorm Forum Series with his passion. He was the political champion who carried the green infrastructure torch to the Metro Vancouver Regional Board and then to UBCM.

    Read Article

    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Knowing what we know, it is not as simple as going from an X to a tick mark in each column of the table of cascading factors,” stated Ray Fung, past-chair of the Green Infrastructure Partnership (2008-2011)


    Nine cascading factors that must be in alignment to implement a course correction. At the top of the list of cascading factors is political leadership and commitment to the shared vision. Leadership boils down to a willingness to act and bring together other champions willing to provide the type of energy and organizational drive that overcomes inertia. “You have to build new political commitment and basically start all over again in a new crucible phase…where you coalition-build to develop a new shared vision, etc.,” stated Ray Fung.

    Read Article

    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Few people know how important the Fraser Valley is to food security for British Columbia. The question is…does anyone care, really?” – Ted van der Gulik, President of the Partnership for Water Sustainability, and former Senior Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture (6th installment in a preview series)


    “The fertile Fraser Valley is some of the best farmland in Canada and can grow a lot of the food that we need. To get to food security in BC, we need to increase the irrigated area from 200,000 to 300,000 hectares. If we invest in the infrastructure needed to supply water from the Fraser River, one-third of the additional 100,000 could be provided in the Fraser Valley. But we are slowly losing our land base for growing food. And it is not because land is coming out of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Rather, it is all about what is happening on the land within the ALR,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

    Read Article

    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Cities are all about choices – choices that become reality very quickly, with lasting consequences. Over the 21st century – the urban century – much will depend upon getting the choices right,” stated Mike Harcourt, the former Premier of British Columbia whose leadership made possible the Growth Strategies Act (5th installment in a preview series)


    “How do we manage the number of people that are moving into the Georgia Basin when we have a very tough geography where the urban space is pretty limited by the sea and the mountains, and by rivers and agricultural land and park wilderness. When you take all that out, there is not a lot of land for urban development and an urban population. We need to act quickly to avoid the situation faced by other large urbanizing regions,” stated Mike Harcourt.

    Read Article

    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION : “Local governments need a real number based on financial value if they want to get natural assets into their management plans on a regular basis. EAP gives them that,” stated Tim Pringle, Chair of the Ecological Accounting Process (EAP)


    “The question we asked was, how do you find that number? Well, we can treat a stream as a land use because we have the Riparian Areas Protection Regulation and we have BC Assessment for land values. The rest of it is the methodology that does the right calculation. Local governments have a spatial way of looking at land use. EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, is a spatial view because the methodology is keyed to parcels which is as spatial as you can get. EAP allows local governments to explore the financial impact of land development choices,” stated Tim Pringle.

    Read Article

    CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “There is no question that we have come a long way in overcoming memory loss in regional growth management and the future looks promising,” stated Ken Cameron, co-architect of Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan in the 1990s (4th installment in a preview series)


    “In Spring 2023, a group of us had meetings with Metro Vancouver planning staff to pass on our knowledge and experience. Our message was, use the strengths of the unique regional planning system you have. We did this in the interest of providing current and future Metro planning staff with some personal background on the people and, in some cases, organizations, that influenced the preparation and adoption of the Livable Region Strategic Plan in 1996 and the subsequent evolution of the planning function,” stated Ken Cameron.

    Read Article

    EAP TRANSITION STRATEGY PARTNERSHIP: “If we apply EAP to land owned by the RDN to help prove that Natural Asset Management is meaningful, then I see that as the trigger to influence other owners of land to behave in a similar fashion,” stated Murray Walters, Manager of Water Services with the Regional District of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island


    “You have to de-silo. You cannot operate in silos where everyone is trying to grab more turf all the time. You need to operate in an environment where people are not afraid to go talk and tell you what they are doing and what they want to help with. We cannot always help them and they cannot always help us either. But we are talking about it these days. Internal collaboration does not happen overnight. You must have initial successes to build relationships. That is what the French Creek EAP project represents. It will feed into other studies,” stated Murray Walters.

    Read Article

    EAP TRANSITION STRATEGY PARTNERSHIP: “The City of Nanaimo is all-in for EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process. When the EAP Partnership idea came up, the most attractive element was the ability to pass on the torch,” stated Bill Sims, General Manager of Engineering and Public Works


    “The EAP program is embedded in our Integrated Action Plan. This supports City Plan: Nanaimo Reimagined which provides direction for the coming 25 years on everything…land use, transportation, climate adaptation, etc. We made sure EAP is part of that. It is firmly rooted,” stated Bill Sims. “Our commitment derives from the Community Charter where one of the Council’s primary duties is stewardship of the community’s assets. We are getting better and better all the time at stewarding the gray infrastructure assets. Now we must do the same with natural assets.”

    Read Article

    Next Page >