The new production shows how the Okanagan is building flood resiliency and working to protect water quality utilizing natural assets.
“Utilizing natural assets proves to be the low cost way to replace aging, depreciating infrastructure and to control flooding and water quality,” says Camille Saltman, Managing Director of entrepreneurship@UBCO which is producing the program. “Building major infrastructure projects and water treatment plans is unsustainable for our small communities up and down the Okanagan Valley. We need alternatives.”
The program goes behind-the-scenes with community leaders like Kelowna City Manager Doug Gilchrist; Tessa Terbasket, Researcher for Okanagan Nation Alliance; Emanuel Machado, City Administrator for Gibsons and Chair of the Municipal Natural Asset Initiative; Anna Warwick Sears, CEO of Okanagan Basin Water Board; Herb Hammond, professional forester and forestry ecologist; Taryn Skalbania, co-founder of Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance and researchers from The University of British Columbia.
“Guest participants include municipal leadership together with leading minds in land preservation, flooding and water quality. All are working on parallel initiatives. Our goal is to coalesce efforts and resources to create powerful outcomes for our region,” says David Saltman, Chair of the Okanagan Sustainability Council, which is a partner in the project.
Viewers will see how forests, streams and grasslands are being used to mitigate flooding and take a close look at resiliency projects that incorporate indigenous traditional knowledge as well as state-of-the-art technology. The program will delve into complex work that is currently underway to predict flooding, protect our vulnerable areas and make our region more climate resilient. It will also look at watershed challenges that have been solved in Victoria and Vancouver but still need to be addressed in the Okanagan.
Viewers who are interested in the program can register free here and the full program is below:
https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9pEYbFgDAnsmLDn
entrepreneurship@UBCO
Over the past three years, entrepreneurship@UBCO – thanks to sponsorship from the law firm Lawson Lundell LLP – has convened leadership programming on sustainability, the future of cancer care, Smart Cities, immersive media, and the future of wine and agriculture. These strategic discussions have led to formation of the Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council and cross sector working groups focused on flooding, remote cancer care, zero waste as well as wine and agriculture pilots.
entrepreneurship@UBCO also offers a Mentor 2 Market accelerator program for UBC-related ventures including students, researchers, recent graduates and staff in the Okanagan. The program includes one-on-one mentoring with more than 30 volunteer business leaders, live cases, exercises and a suite of more than 30 educational VODcasts.
Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council
The Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council is a not-for-profit BC Society dedicated to protecting and restoring our natural ecosystems while building healthy, resilient, connected communities throughout the Valley. Initiatives include zero waste valley, intelligent OKGN, connected communities and healthy ecosystems.
