Community Stories
Nature Activities and Climate Solutions Resources for Busy Parents, Educators and Nature Lovers
This free downloadable e-book for parents of children age 0 – 12, is filled with creative activities, practical tips, nature activities and climate friendly solutions. It will spark environmental awareness, foster nature stewardship and make sustainable habits a part…
National Food Security? Not Without a Healthy Diet
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization describes an agri-food system as encompassing everything from “field to fork.” Unfortunately, Canada’s new National Food Security Strategy fails to pay much attention to either the field or the fork end of the system.
Send a Wake-up Call to the Forest Practices Board
The BC Forest Practices Board calls itself “BC’s independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices”. The Board is the BC public’s only avenue for holding logging companies and the government accountable when either transgress a narrow range of forest-related…
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Sooke Hills Wilderness Park Highway Proposal Update
Thank you to everyone who has written letters and showed up at CRD meetings to speak against the province’s desire to see a highway pushed through our precious watershed in the Sooke Hills Wilderness Park. The insanity of this proposal shows that the Ministry of…
Together Trees Stand, Divided They Fall
It was such a disappointment to see the media slant a celebratory good news story into a negative piece of journalism by sensationalizing one council member’s comments. As community members and volunteers, we can honestly say we are very pleased at how receptive…
Urban Forest Master Plan To Be Implemented
Thank you to Victoria Council (technically the Committee of the Whole) for approving $1.26 million in new funding for our urban forest, in addition to the $110K already approved to update the 2005 Tree Protection Bylaw. Finally, the Urban Forest Master Plan adopted in…
Community Trees Matter Network Information and Inspiration Night
Join us Wednesday, February 27th from 7:30 – 9 pm at the Church of Truth, 111 Superior St, for an inspirational and informational evening featuring a talk and photography by Frances Litman, local author Jane Warren Campbell reading from her book Conversations…
A Sad Day for Saanich Oaks
What will it take to stop Saanich cutting down healthy trees on public land, in the name of road upgrades, particularly when alternatives can be found?
Victoria’s Trees Need Your Help! Time Sensitive Update
Council votes Feb. 21st on funding the Urban Forest Master Plan. Money is available, but council could maintain its record of underfunding. If you haven’t already, please tell them how important trees are to all of us. Write city council TODAY and tell them to…
Trees Can Do That? International Speaker, Author, & Urban Forest Expert Cecil Konijnendijk, Phd
UBC Urban Forestry professor and international urban forest governance expert, Cecil Konijnendijk, will share his passion about urban trees, urban nature and urban greening programs on Wednesday, April 17th from 7:15 – 9 pm at the Cook Street Activity Center, 380 Cook Street.
Delivering Community Power
Kudos to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Friends of Public Services for taking a serious look at the Leap Manifesto and bringing an action plan to it. If we truly intend to take climate change seriously, we need more initiatives like this and support for the…
Finnerty Road Garry Oaks
Maleea Acker, a UVic professor, a journalist and author of Gardens Aflame, about Garry Oak Meadows, has written this letter to Adriane Pollard, Director, Environmental Services, Saanich, with copies to Mayor and Council, plus to the Times-Colonist and the Editor of…
Re: Generation – Why older people must stand in solidarity with the youth climate strikes
“But those of us who have long been engaged in this struggle will not abandon you. You have issued a challenge to which we must rise, and we will stand in solidarity with you. Though we are old and you are young, we will be led by you. We owe you that, at least.”
Healing the Pain of Climate Despair
The problems facing the world right now, the litany of environmental and social problems, are hard to bear. We feel despair, anger, and apathy. It hurts to engage deeply again and again with this very heavy material. And so it should. Use that pain, as it is fuel.
TREES and the UFMP
I grew up on the west coast, then spent 30 years on the prairie. It was the TREES that brought me back, two years ago. I was shocked at how my old neighbourhoods in Vancouver have lost their green spaces and become crowded with houses, cars, and concrete — the literal…
