Community Planning

Community planning has a significant effect on whether an area is sustainable or not. Communities should be planned more as a community and less as individual houses sharing one location. An urban area that is designed to bring people together will result in a greater sense of community. It is also important to get the whole neighbourhood behind initiatives when planning; this will make the whole process of change easier. Proper planning of a community can help increase the social capital of the area by getting people involved, and developing a sense of safety and trust.

Community planning can include diversifying types of housing and types of sectors (residential, business etc.). These two factors alone can a have major influence on the sustainability of a community. For example if there are businesses and other sources of work close to residential areas people will not have to commute as far, reducing auto emissions and increasing social capital.

A sustainable community can mean different things to different people and can be created in a variety of ways. But no matter what, it is important element and adds many benefits to the community and the environment.

Restoration Project Connects Residents To Their Watershed

An article in the 2008-2009 publishing of the Green Guide, a resource guide for sustainable living, introduced a local project that helps the community connect to the environment around them. There are 3 separate, local restoration initiatives; Bowker Creek, Gorge Waterway and Esquimalt Lagoon.

Bowker creek meanders through Sannich and Victoria before draining in to the Ocean at Oak Bay. The goal of this remediation is to have a healthy urban stream that can support the native ecosystem. So far volunteers have helped with bank stabilization, interpretive signs, and a celebratory event that brought the community together for education and awareness. See www.bowkercreekinitiative.ca for more information.

The Gorge waterway shoreline restoration initiative was started because invasive species have overtaken the area. A few of the problematic ones are; English ivy, and Himalayan blackberry. Currently volunteers are working hard to remove these species that are competing with native species. For more information see www.gorgewaterway.ca.

The Esquimalt Lagoon which is a federal migratory bird sanctuary, is a tidal water body that is semi-enclosed by a natural sand and gravel pit. The project is to restore dune habitat on the Coburg Peninsula, increase visitor awareness, increase plant native vegetation to increase wildlife habitat, prevent erosion and encourage natural diversity. For more information visit www.elsi.ca.

These projects allow people to work together to protect habitat and restore the shoreline so that the diversity of the species and health of the ecosystem is regained. It also increases the value and beauty of the environment. See www.crd.bc.ca/watersheds for more information about this community initiative.

Disconnect From Place

A few classes so far this year have addressed our disconnect from place. Although “place” can include many aspects, the most important is the surrounding environment. Some reasons for this include the lack of importance and value given to place. This allows us to not consider the impact of our actions on our surroundings. When the repercussion of our actions and decisions are not visible we become disconnected from our true effects on the environment.

Goods travel long distances to end up in our hands today where as in the past they were made or grown locally, because of this we don’t see the environmental effects of the products life cycle. Similar circumstances surround waste disposal, when it disappears from the curb each week, the effects are not seen and hence do not affect actions. Garbage, despite what is believed does not “go away,” it just gets moved around until it is in a convenient location. This increasing detachment erases personal consequence or responsibility for actions and decisions. In order to make communities more sustainable a connection between the environment and actions need to be made.

Benefits of Creating a Sustainable Community

Greening your neighbourhood can help save the planet and boost your well-being and sense of community. If everyone in your neighbourhood started being environmentally-friendly it would contribute to cleaner air and less waste. Research indicates living in sustainable, green communities have a huge impact on physical and mental health. Creating a green neighbourhood can include passing green laws such as anti-idling bylaws, providing green supports such as lots of parks and transit and a green culture where neighbours encourage each other to be green. These help encourage sustainable living, from reducing energy and water use to better waste management and less reliance on cars. Working together on these help build a feeling of community.

Residents living in a sustainable community have more energy and a higher level of happiness due to the increase in sense of community and access to green space. When a community encourages walking, cycling, carpooling and bus riding, the reduction of the use of fossil fuels improves respiratory health by increasing the quality of the air. When more people walk, cycle and visit the green spaces, fitness levels of a community increases.

Overall it has been shown that living near even a tiny green space, dramatically reduces the risk of fatal conditions such as heart disease, due to the stress-busting mental and physical health benefits. If each community made efforts to become sustainable the total effects around the world would be enormous.

Education Programs for the Entire Community

Education initiatives for the entire community are just as important as for youth, here is one example that I think was very effective. Before I moved out to Victoria for school I had the opportunity to attended every one. I found them very interesting and a great way to interact with my community.

The program was started by the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Science, it is a science and nature speaker series that takes place at the local library, once a month and is free. They have a variety of speakers come to do presentations on different aspects of the environment, usually the majority of seats are filled and there seems to be different community members in attendance each time. Afterward people always stick around to chat and ask question, allowing a greater sense of community to develop along with interest and connection to the natural environment.

Some of the past and present speakers and topics were;

January 2009 - Marie-France Noel, Eastern Ontario’s Model Forest
November 2008 - Dr. Jerome Marty, River Institute Research Scientist
October 2008 - Dr. Joe Schwartz, McGill University
September 2008 - Dr.Joan Marshall, McGill University
March 2008 - Dr. Michael Runtz, Naturalist Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Region”
Feb 2008 - Dr. Oliver Coomes, Department of Geography, McGill University
January 2008 - Dr Vance Trudeau, Fish, frogs and pharmaceuticals
November 2007 - John St-Marseille, P.Eng. Thompson Rosemount Group
October 2007 - Dr. Brian Hickey, Research Scientist, River Institute
September 2007 - Dr. David Bird, Wildlife BiologyProfessor , McGill University
June 2007 - Dr. Kevan, University of Guelph "Plight of the Bee"
May 2007 - Dr. Stuart Bunn, Griffith University, Australia
April 2007 - Adrienne Fowlie, Graduate of the University of Ottawa
March 2007 - Bruce Doran, Biologist, River Institute
February 2007 - Dr. Michael Runtz, Naturalist

One of the most interesting topics was "Plight of the Bee", this presentation was given shortly after the stories of cellphone signals interfering with bees was published in newspapers. This gave the public a chance to ask questions that the had after reading the articles. If we want our communities to become sustainable I think it is important that the public has a chance to ask questions to members of the scientific community about what is going on and why.

Education Programs for Youth

We have learned throughout this course how important community is in becoming sustainable; some of the best ways to encourage community participation involves education.
The Goldstream Gazette had an article on how they are changing the way career fairs are run at some of the local schools. Belmont secondary school is trying to help students understand issues facing us around the world by displaying information about environmental groups and job opportunities.

I think introducing environmental jobs to high school students is a great idea. It was a career I had not considered until grade 12 when I had the opportunity to attend the Rotary Adventures in the Environment. In my hometown, Cornwall Ontario, this is an amazing program that high school students can apply to take part in. It is four days long and involves assisting environmental scientists with research. The activities ranged from implanting transmitters into fish, tracking these fish, identifying invertebrates, studying bats, and crawling through bat caves. This program was hosted by a local research centre called the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Science.

Most people have no idea about all the interesting research going on around them in their community. Teachers in the area also have the opportunity to bring classes on field trips to the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Science. Students have the opportunity to learn about and catch frogs for kindergarten classes, or learn to collect and identify fish and invertebrate for high school students. Hands on experience is a great way to get younger children and teenagers involved in nature and community projects that are taking place around them.

Another event that I was fortunate enough to help with was the Ontario Children’s Water Festival. Various stations were set up where grade 4 students moved around to learn about water contamination and conservation from high school students. This gets the high school students to learn the material and get the chance to interact with younger students in their community at the same time as promoting sustainability. I think communities benefit greatly from opportunities such as these; they bring community members closer to nature and each other.

Hyperconsumption

An interesting article in the Goldstream Gazette was a comparison of values and standard of living in the past and present using the authors’ personal life experience. There were a few points that he brought up that got me thinking. One was whether the wondrous goods now available, out weigh the costs and damages of making, obtaining and disposing of them. Costs include trying to reverse the poisoning of our water, soil and air. Are we actually happier and better off because of these products ?. The author also brought up a new term that I think fits our consumer ways quite well – hyperconsumption.

Has all the accumulation of stuff really and truly made present life better than in the past? We currently have a world of technological marvel along with ever increasing personal hyperconsumption but at the expense of communities, species diversity, clean air, water, and soil. Each of us is a carrier of dozens of chemicals and not surprisingly cancer is one of the biggest killers.

Are all the new gadgets and gizmos worth the personal and environmental destruction and contamination. This does not seem very sustainable. The author feels from personal experience that past generations were not deprived or bored with the lack of a constant supply of new games and television, and believes it actually resulted in communities being closer and more connected when the outdoors were where activities occurred.

One thing we tend not to consider when we mention how we have poisoned our soil, water and air, is that it is not truly “ours” it belongs to all organisms that inhabit the earth. However we have taken the liberty to destroy it and disregard all other populations. Our culture tends to place a high value on possession of material goods and a relatively low value on the natural environment; this allows maximum exploitation of resources with minimal guilt.

Less Area is More?

This week a guest speaker, Judy Brownoff a Saanich Councillor and CRD director, introduced an interesting policy to me called an urban containment boundary. It is used to stop urban development from invading rural areas and green spaces. The area inside the boundary is urban, high-density development, and the outside is rural, low density. When this boundary is put in place by a municipality, solutions for growth other than expansion must be found. Some solutions are increasing density of developments, and redevelopment of building sites.

Conventional development patterns used tend to separate homes, jobs and shopping from each other; then connecting these by roads; due to the low density. This promotes the common view that outward growth is inevitable and necessary. Problems associated with low-density, single-use pattern include: traffic congestion/pollution; few methods of transportation; loss of working farmland; unaffordable road and infrastructure maintenance costs; and an increase in obesity, asthma, and other health problems related to vehicle dependency.

Healthy, sustainable, communities are dependent on the creation and protection of green space because they provide many services such as; clean air and water, climate moderation (temperature, wind and noise control), and absorption of rain through unpaved areas.

Compact communities have a smaller per capita footprint and help keep costs of services down. Creating well-designed compact neighbourhoods will help communities absorb new residents and jobs without sacrificing the quality of life, environment, or the fiscal health of cities. Benefits of compaction include: increased viability of alternative methods of transportation; mitigation of climate change by providing shopping, schools, and other services in close proximity. This will reduce dependency on vehicles; protection of farmland; maximize the use of existing infrastructure and minimize new infrastructure; diversification of local economy by allowing people to work from mixed-use neighbourhoods that attract and keep residents; less time commuting. All of which in turn allow neighbours to get to know one another better strengthening the social fabric of the community. Overall revitalizing the community and making it more sustainable.

Several Regions and Municipalities have created Urban Containment Boundaries as a part of their growth management strategies: Saanich and Nanaimo http://www.toolkit.bc.ca/creating-urban-containment-boundary

There is currently a proposed amendment to the Regional Growth Strategy to extend the Regional Urban Containment and Servicing Area boundary in the District of Highlands. For more information see http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/defend-the-regional-growth-strategy-and-urban-containment-boundary.html

Why do we, unlike other animals, have trouble building Sustainable Communities?

I thought of this when we were given the definitions of community in one of our first Sustainable and Community Relations classes. The common definitions of community were given first; a group of people living in a particular local area, sharing common ownership, common interests, common goals, or a residential district. But the last definition given was the one that got me thinking, it was; a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other. This may be the biological and ecological definition but as soon as I heard this one it seemed like the best, most sustainable and most community oriented definition. Humans are not the greatest at interacting and sharing the environment with other organisms, we tend to think of communities as being made up of only one species; humans. But we do rely on other organisms for a variety of things, such as food production and waste removal. This makes them a part of our community and us a part of theirs. We are bound to other species around us by the food web, if nothing else. Humans could learn a lot from communities of organisms as they use their natural strengths collectively to be sustainable and have mastered the art of building sustainable communities over millions of years.

Different organisms such as insects and bacteria have learned to work together so that both populations benefit. An example of a sustainable community is between aphids and ants. Aphids produce nectar that ants want, so the ants herd the aphids and protect them from predators in exchange for providing nectar. This is a sustainable community based on trading of goods and services. I think there are more than a few things that could be learned. One thing that humans share with every organism on earth is the need to care for and protect the earth as we all rely on it to survive.

What happened to the first 2 R’s ?

Ever notice that although there are 3 R’s, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, communities have focused only on the last one. Communities have put effort into providing a recycling service and rightly so, as it decreases the material entering the landfill. The first 2 R’S, Reduce and Reuse have the potential to have even a greater reduction of waste than recycling. Recycling is not necessarily the best R to emphasize, because even if 100% of materials were recyclable, there would still be waste associated with collection, separation, transport, and processing of materials, to produce the marketable product. These are all avoided by reducing and reusing.

One reuse effort that has slowly become prominent is the switch from disposable plastic bags to material reusable ones. Different methods of promoting the use of reusable bags are being used by communities. They include; charging consumers for plastic bags, giving a discount to consumers that bring bags and creating regulations to ban plastic bags all together.

Communities need to look at the over all picture of consumption and disposal instead of starting their plan from what arrives at the curb. It’s beneficial for a community to decrease the amount of material placed at the curb, whether recycling or garbage, because approximately 80% of all money spent on waste management is on collection. Reducing and reusing would have a considerable effect of the decrease of these costs. This is one of many benefits.

Reusing a product or package more than once or for another purpose extends the life of the material and therefore reduces the waste quantity requiring treatment and disposal. The environmental effects are also reduced because a replacement item is not produced.


Reduce Your Impact By Following the Three New R’s and One P

Rethink: consider why you use a particular material and then investigate if there are options for not using it (why use paper towels - when you can use a cloth, why use plastic bags - when you can use cloth bags).

Refuse: once you have rethought materials and identified alternatives stick to not buying the original product that you’re replacing.

Reduce: minimize the amount of waste you create directly by purchasing only what you need, sharing items, and using products with less packaging.

Pre-cycle: choosing products that lend themselves readily to recycling or are made of recycled material, especially post consumer recycled material


Some information used is from the Waste Management class at St. Lawrence College, Cornwall Campus, Environmental Technician Program, 2007-2008

Sustainability Just Another "Buzz Word"?

Sustainability is one of many green "buzz words" that are being thrown around frequently, without thought being given to the meaning. This is one term that has surfaced regularly, since the environment has reached the priority list of society. Rarely, are terms such as this well defined. When you look sustainability up online, you get a large variety of definitions because each person understands and interprets sustainability differently, depending on personal experience and values. By looking at real world examples in connection with communities, hopefully, I myself as well as readers will gain a more indepth understanding of what being sustainable truely means. As it is no longer a question of to be or not to be but rather how and where improvement is needed. It can't be expected that sustainability will be accepted and adopted without first being understood.