Marc Lee of the “Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives” speaks to the transition from fossil fuel extraction jobs, to Green Jobs in renewable energy.

https://vimeo.com/197565027

Producer/Director/Camera – David Kiess
Editor/Camera – Robert Duhaime

Did you miss this event on April 21, 2021? Good news! Below is the complete list of links offered along with the video recording.

We all know that our island home routinely faces severe drought and fire risk conditions in the summer months, and these risks are increasing. 

But there’s a lot we can do to reduce fire risks while addressing water quality and supply issues. Salt Spring’s own Climate Action Plan contains scores of recommendations on what we need to do to ensure we have enough fresh water for our community and protect our freshwater ecosystems. 

In this video you will hear about exciting real-world solutions to these big picture problems from:

Robin Annschild, B.Sc. Biology, Wetland Restoration specialist, Species At-Risk specialist, SSIWPA Technical Working Group. Robin is spearheading efforts to restore marshlands at Xwaaqw’um (“Burgoyne Bay”)

Shannon Cowan, PhD Biology, SSI Watershed Protection Alliance Coordinator, and Bryan Young, Chair of Transition Salt Spring. Shannon and Bryan will discuss the most critical recommendations related to freshwater in the Climate Action Plan and share the many things we can do in our own lives to conserve water.

Julie Pisani, Drinking Water & Watershed Protection Program Coordinator, Regional District of Nanaimo, and Laura Patrick, SSI Watershed Protection Alliance Chair, Islands Trust Local Trustee. Julie and Laura will discuss local government priorities related to freshwater stewardship in the face of increasing pressures from climate change and development.

Resources:

Julie Pasani, Drinking Water & Watershed Protection Program Coordinator, Regional District of Nanaimo provides these links;

• Our general website is here:https://www.rdn.bc.ca/drinking-water-and-watershed-protection
• Our Action Plan 2.0 can be found Here. 
• Our outreach initiative Team WaterSmart has lots of resources to share here:https://www.getinvolved.rdn.ca/team-watersmart
• Our water stewardship rebate programs:  https://rdn.bc.ca/rdn-rebates(in particular for rainwater harvesting, irrigation and soil improvements)
• Our Stewardship Seedfunding  https://rdn.bc.ca/stewardship-seed-funding(for community-led watercourse restoration projects)
• Our Projects Listhttps://rdn.bc.ca/dwwp-projects

Shannon Cowan, SSI Watershed Protection Alliance Coordinator provides these links;

• A blog about rainwater harvesting and resources about water conservation for all islandersHere.
• Salt Spring Island Non-Potable Rainwater Harvesting Best Practices Guide Here.
• Take a Virtual Tour of Salt Spring Island Rainwater Harvesting Systems Here.
• Attend the recorded Rainwater Harvesting Webinar in the Islands Trust Climate Change Speaker Series Here.

This Islands Trust video can give you some more ideas about the importance of freshwater to these special Salish Sea islands. The way that freshwater behaves on our island where the only input is precipitation is different than everywhere else on the mainland.

The Climate Action Plan can be found here, chapter 8 is on Freshwater Ecosystem Recommendations.

The Watershed Map for SSI can be found here. 

CAP Freshwater and Forests graphic can be found here.

• How The Ocean Cleanup Mapped the World’s Rivers

• The Incredible Transformation Of World’s Most Polluted Beach 

• How Close Are We to Reinventing Plastic?

• The Story of Plastic

Every year, nearly one cubic meter of water falls on every square meter of Salt Spring Island. So why do we have a water shortage problem? How and why should we collect and store water?

On Sunday, April 18, at 3:00 pm, we hosted a free online zoom seminar about water conservation and storage on the islands. This live virtual discussion featured a panel of experienced practitioners involved with different water conservation approaches, collection, and storage – from pumped well-water to rainwater catchment to seasonal streams.

The goal is to allow homeowners, gardeners, farmers, and others to consider a variety of options as solutions to the diminishing supply of summer water on the Islands, particularly at their home, farm, or business.

If you missed the event, you can still listen to the recording with our panellists in this ‘how and why’ discussion to conserve, collect and store fresh water on the islands;

Grant Wickland, who has built numerous houses and ponds on the island with expertise in the biology and geology of soils and clays;

Gord Baird, a certified rainwater harvesting designer and installer who specializes in potable water, home and commercial systems, and community water systems;

Maxine Leichter, President of the Salt Spring Island Water Preservation Society and a career environmental policy analyst who has tracked Salt Spring’s water issues since 2004.

This event was brought to you by Transition Salt Spring as we explore the recommendations from the Salt Spring Climate Action Plan for Freshwater Ecosystems.

You can watch the Water Storage Options Video Presentation Recording here:

SSI-Webinar-Rain-Storage presentation by Gord Baird of Eco-sense (gord@eco-sense.ca)Download

Did you miss this event on May 19? Good News, you can watch the recorded presentations here!

Salt Spring food growers are significantly reducing the GHG emissions we produce by keeping our food systems local. Here is our opportunity to learn what is underway on the island and what we can do to help increase and improve local food and agricultural production! 

Join us in rooting down to enhance our robust local food economy—providing solutions to lowering our carbon footprint through improving Salt Spring Island’s food and agricultural systems. 

We heard from:

Anne Macey, President of the Salt Spring Abattoir Society and the current chair of the SSI Agricultural Alliance and the Island Natural Growers;

Patricia Reichert, Food System Analyst and project manager at The Root farm centre, a centrally-located food processing, distribution, and storage facility we can all use; and

Kaleigh Barton from Heavenly Roots Farm, CSA farmer, on the board for the Community Market Society, the Salt Spring Farmland Trust Society, and co-ordinator of the annual SS Seedy Saturday 

Thank you to our host Bobbi Janowiak, who has happily participated in the SSI Conservancy, the Garden Club, and is a member of the TSS Education Committee for over six years.

The Salt Spring Abattoir is a community facility managed by the not-for-profit Salt Spring Abattoir Society. It provides local custom slaughter services for both red meat and poultry.

In 2010 the agricultural community came together to raise funds to build a local abattoir. The intent was to remove the need for farmers to leave the island for slaughter service, ensure humane treatment of animals, and increase local food production and food security. The Salt Spring Abattoir opened late in 2012 for poultry and now processes all types of livestock under a provincial license. 

The Root will be a centrally-located food processing, distribution, and storage facility, operated on a break-even basis as an incubator for increased local food production. The aim is to increase food production on Salt Spring by making it easier for local growers to bring their harvest to market, add value to it and connect with consumers on the island and the surrounding region. A hub for food initiatives and the development of new value-added products using Salt Spring-grown produce, the Farm Centre will also serve as an educational center for food security, food safety, and value-added processing. It will provide access to food-related vocational rehabilitation programs that do not currently exist.

Eating local and growing food – How are farmers working together with the community and finding innovative solutions to provide individuals with local food? Salt Spring has different models like CSAs and Market Clubs/Market CSAs, with the regrowth of the farm-stand culture. How can we increase local food availability at local retailers, and what are new websites and applications that make buying local food on Salt Spring Island easy. Let’s find out how gardeners can meet their own household food needs by accessing locally grown seeds and participating in the seed system. Let’s pursue growing food that makes ecology and sustainability a priority!

BLOG: rainwater harvesting and resources about water conservation

GUIDE: SSI Non-Potable Rainwater Harvesting Best Practices

VIRTUAL TOUR: SSI Rainwater Harvesting Systems

WEBINAR: Rainwater Harvesting in the Islands Trust

SSIWPA BROCHURE: “Know Your Well” Information about drilled well siting, licensing, registration, testing your well water, and much more!

BOOKLET: SSI Lake Stream Ecosystems- Available for $5 at SS Books. Local lake researchers Drew Bodaly and Maggie Squires have condensed work completed on three SS Island lake-stream systems into a booklet. This short but useful handbook is written in everyday language for islanders and especially users of SS’s lakes (for drinking, swimming, boating, fishing).

Conservation and Resilience in the Gulf Islands: 1 Freshwater Availability. The section of this webinar by Diana Allen (in particular) is really accessible and likely helpful to anyone seeking to learn more about groundwater.

Learn about Rainbow Road Allotment Gardens and the water conservation, catchment and irrigation systems that make this project a success!

View Powerpoint Presentation Here

On March 17th 2021, Transition Salt Spring and Raincoast Conservation Foundation hosted the Green and Blue Carbon Stewardship Workshop. This is the ninth of the series of videos from that workshop.

Featuring Shauna Doll (Raincoast Conservation Foundation), Ruth Waldick (Transition Salt Spring) and Bryan Young (Transition Salt Spring) This short session provides a synthesis of the three closing breakout sessions that precede it for the benefit of participants who were unable to attend all three sessions during the workshop. It closes with a question about how we might be able to implement an Indigenous/civic nature-based carbon project and how participants might be able to help move such a project forward.

Investigate. Inform. Inspire. Raincoast is a team of conservationists and scientists empowered by our research to protect the lands, waters and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. learn more at www.raincoast.org

On March 17th 2021, Transition Salt Spring and Raincoast Conservation Foundation hosted the Green and Blue Carbon Stewardship Workshop. This is the eighth of the series of videos from that workshop.

Malcolm Penn is a Spatial Analyst with the Ministry of Primary Industries in New Zealand (NZ) with a focus on the country’s Emissions Trading Scheme. This session provides an international carbon project example, and though not be completely applicable to the context of the Salish Sea (e.g. most land eligible for carbon projects is agricultural), there are important lessons to be learned from the Emissions Trading Scheme, which has been successfully operating since 2008.

Investigate. Inform. Inspire. Raincoast is a team of conservationists and scientists empowered by our research to protect the lands, waters and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. learn more at www.raincoast.org

On March 17th 2021, Transition Salt Spring and Raincoast Conservation Foundation hosted the Green and Blue Carbon Stewardship Workshop. This is the seventh of the series of videos from that workshop.

In this session, Robert Seaton and Joseph Pallant briefly discuss the tools (e.g. protocols) available to guide the inception of carbon projects and provide suggestions for potential next steps for implementing carbon projects in the Salish Sea. Both speakers agree that community collaboration and information sharing will be an essential component of this work. However, a key takeaway of this session was that the establishment of a carbon project should not be a goal. Rather, ecosystems should be managed for long term sustainability and resilience, and carbon sequestration should be an outcome of improving ecological functionality.

Investigate. Inform. Inspire. Raincoast is a team of conservationists and scientists empowered by our research to protect the lands, waters and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. learn more at www.raincoast.org

On March 17th 2021, Transition Salt Spring and Raincoast Conservation Foundation hosted the Green and Blue Carbon Stewardship Workshop. This is the sixth of the series of videos from that workshop.

In this session, Dirk Brinkman and Briony Penn discuss the policy changes required to make blue and forest carbon projects feasible in the Salish Sea. Importantly, collaboration and co-management are identified as key components of future carbon policy. More specifically, Brinkman emphasizes that the template of timber-centric management models of the past must be disposed of so the same mistakes are not made by designing a carbon-centric model.

Investigate. Inform. Inspire. Raincoast is a team of conservationists and scientists empowered by our research to protect the lands, waters and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. learn more at www.raincoast.org

On March 17th 2021, Transition Salt Spring and Raincoast Conservation Foundation hosted the Green and Blue Carbon Stewardship Workshop. This is the fifth of the series of videos from that workshop.

Featuring moderator, Briony Penn and panelists, Elizabeth May (MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands), Adam Olsen (BC Green Party MLA for Saanich North & the Islands), Eric Pelkey (Community Engagement Coordinator, W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council and Hereditary Chief of Tsawout), Gary Holman (Salt Spring Island Electoral Area Regional Director), W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council), and Deb Morrison (North Pender Island Trustee)

A panel discussion centered on environmental protection between leadership and current elected officials working in the Islands Trust area. Moderator, Briony Penn, opens the conversation by recognizing the complexity of implementing nature-based climate solutions in the intricate ecological and political landscape of the Salish Sea. The conversation turns to Elizabeth May who makes a case for a strengthened, intergovernmental response to the climate emergency. Next, Adam Olsen grounds the discussion in BC’s historic and current policy landscape. Eric Pelkey then shares lessons from W̱SÁNEĆ Elders, reminding us of the interconnectedness of all living things and the importance of taking protective action to live in reciprocity with them. Afterward Gary Holman encourages listeners to make contributions where they can and points to land acquisition in collaboration with First Nations as a strong option for conservation in the Capital Regional District. Finally Deb Morrison, supplies a number of individual actions people can engage with to see conservation objectives furthered on the Gulf Islands. The conversation ranges from policy reform to greenhouse gas emissions to the feasibility of implementing nature based carbon projects in the Salish Sea.

Investigate. Inform. Inspire. Raincoast is a team of conservationists and scientists empowered by our research to protect the lands, waters and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. learn more at www.raincoast.org