Editorial Notes, May 6, 2009

Without any planning on our part, this issue of the Communities in Transition Information Resource came together with a focus on the growing conversation about BC’s Climate Action Charter (CAC). As Tim Pringle notes in his article, the CAC is of great interest to the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Neither the CAC, nor reduction of green house gas emissions (GHGs) are, in themselves, land use issues. The various actions taken towards reducing GHGs and meeting CAC goals, however, will have an impact on land use practices and policies throughout the province. Many of the communities involved in Communities in Transition projects are already moving in this direction. This isn’t because they are focused on the Climate Action Charter or GHGs reduction, but simply because the kinds of sustainable land use practices supported by CIT tend to have a positive downstream effect on reducing a community’s GHGs.

Overviews of two current CIT projects bear this out. The Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study is explicitly about how one community and a region is grappling with mitigation and adaption strategies. The Fraser Basin Council’s province-wide Smart Planning for Communities project, on the other hand, will provide communities with both direct and indirect help in meeting their CAC goals. In coming issues we will continue to highlight how BC communities are working with CIT to meet challenges related to a number of sustainability themes.

One of these "sustainability" themes is rural revitalization, the theme of last fall’s CIT-sponsored conference in Prince George. The Regional Innovation Chair in Cattle Sustainability at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) is an example of how the Real Estate Foundation is involved in rural revitalization in BC's Interior. Our interview with Nancy Van Wagoner , Associate VP for Research and Graduate Studies at TRU looks at what this unique applied research position means for grassland communities in the Interior.

Our column on what the City of Courtenay is doing with it's "1000 Trees" initiative picks up the CAC theme. It also underlines Tim Pringle's comments in his article about local governments taking leadership on broad sustainability issues.

The final piece in this issue follows up on Tim's most recent article (in the March issue of the CIT Information Resource) on the “sustainability conversation today.” It asks Carole Stark, Victor Cumming, and Peter ter Weeme, several people active in various streams of the “sustainability conversation,” to give their views on the state of the conversation.

We think these are important topics for land use practitioners in BC today. We encourage you to share this material – and to tell us where we’re on the mark, and where we miss the mark. Please email us, or use the blog reply options.

Already a number of you are telling us that the CIT Information Resource is providing good information in a useful format. Several items will be appearing in the newsletters and blogs of partner organizations. This is a positive sign. We want to make our materials as widely available as possible. If you see an opportunity for republication, electronically or in print, for education or non-commercial uses, please feel free to do so. We hope that you, as readers and as practitioners in community transition, will take what you like here, reference it, and share it for educational and non-commercial purpose. We only ask that you let us know how you are using it, even if it’s just to circulate an article in the office or amongst friends. We also look forward to suggestions for opinion pieces, letters to the editor, and reprints of your articles related to CIT themes.

We look forward to hearing from you!


hans peter meyer
Editor, Communities in Transition Information Resouce
editor@communitytransition.org