Water is life. It’s a simple fact of life we rely on everyday. Especially in British Columbia, where freshwater powers our towns and cities, grows our food, and provides our recreation.
In BC, and across Canada, the sources of our freshwater – our watersheds – are the envy of the world. However, our ability to go out and enjoy our waters so easily leads many Canadians to have a false sense of security. The truth is our waters, from our rivers to our wetlands, are experiencing unprecedented challenges. And when it comes to protecting this precious lifeline, it has been a challenge to rally public support and get everyone on the same page.
“Over the past few years, we’ve noticed a disconnect between the community support we knew was out there for reforming water and watershed management, and the level of support we were able to harness and mobilize to drive change at the provincial level,” said Coree Tull, Co-Director of Campaigns and Organizing with the Canadian Freshwater Alliance.
From community to community across BC, freshwater advocates and campaigners are passionate about protecting the health of their local waters. What was missing was a way to connect these efforts to create the groundswell of support needed for provincial policy action.
So how can we harness that passion for freshwater, and work together to protect our watersheds from threats like industrial extraction, toxic pollution, and climate change?
This is the challenge that water campaigners were grappling with when they launched the CodeBlue BC campaign in January 2020.
Mobilizing local freshwater champions for provincial action
The Canadian Freshwater Alliance is a national initiative that builds, unites and activates networks of freshwater champions across the country to drive change and secure healthy waters. When the Freshwater Alliance was formed, it focused on training and education to help groups across the country gain the skills and resources to organize and drive freshwater issues in their own communities.
“Over the years we were finding that there were lots of community organizations popping up working on local watershed issues, but there wasn’t a coordinated ask to take their local action one step further to drive change at the provincial policy level,” explained Coree.
“There were so many amazing watershed groups working in BC, from academia, to different coalition groups, to campaign teams, that were all working on water but finding it really hard to get a foothold in making strong policy change and engaging the public,” added Danielle Paydli, Canadian Freshwater Alliance BC Organizer.
At the root of the problem was the fact that water issues often feel disconnected and temporary. For example, water advocacy groups would see a huge public response to stories about salmon stranded in drying puddles and streams during droughts, but the concern faded as soon as the rainy season came back around. Similarly, grassroots groups were finding success in organizing local lakeshore cleanups, but it was hard to translate that same action into support for provincial watershed management policy.
“We realized we needed to have a larger, central, provincial campaign to bring all of these local issues together and have some concrete asks for the government. We needed to support our local grassroots partners through developing a shared set of provincial-level solutions that would have an impact in local communities and bring more of the public into the fold,” said Danielle.
And so, together with water champions and leaders across the Province, they launched CodeBlue BC, a plan to secure and sustain BC’s freshwater sources for generations to come.
The CodeBlue BC plan has three clear parts: 1. Get tough on water wasters and polluters through regulation and better enforcement; 2. Make big industrial users pay to clean up the damage they’ve done; and 3. Give local people the power and resources to restore and manage their local water sources.
The ask is simple: Read the plan. Add your voice. Take action.
And to connect the dots between that all important community support and provincial action, a roster of “Code Blue Champions” – local leaders from brewery owners to farmers – support the plan and encourage their communities to do the same.
CodeBlue BC finds success
The campaign is working. In its first year they have garnered over 20 thousand Facebook supporters, 8,641 action-takers and 529 volunteer sign-ups. To put that into perspective, two of BC’s major political parties have digital audiences around the same size.
Not only has the campaign encouraged community-to-community connection around water issues, but the Canadian Freshwater Alliance also contributed to the creation of a new BC Watershed Security Coalition made up of 27 organizations representing 250,000 British Columbians who act as a collective and non-partisan voice for the water community to elected leaders on shared priorities.
And in late 2020, as part of its economic restart plan, the BC government announced a $27 million Healthy Watersheds Initiative earmarked for watershed protection. “We have never seen this scale of funding before for watersheds in BC, and it is only just scratching the surface of what is needed” said Coree.
So far, the Healthy Watersheds Initiative has supported over 60 community projects. The goal is to combine economic recovery with community-driven watershed conservation and restoration focusing on improving the health of watersheds, creating economic and skills development opportunities, and strengthening relationships with First Nations and Indigenous-led organizations. This success has been thanks to a growing province-wide community that has been taking coordinated action and aligning their messaging to the government to protect our freshwater.
“Where it’s interesting is the work that we’re doing across a community of water groups in BC. CodeBlue BC alone didn’t make the economic stimulus investment happen. The BC Watershed Security Coalition alone didn’t make it happen. What’s so powerful about it is that as the freshwater community we were able to come together and be coordinated,” she explained.
As we move out of the pandemic, Coree and Danielle are excited to bring the CodeBlue BC community together with their neighbours in person to find connection through their watersheds. “That’s going to be our next big challenge and opportunity,” said Coree, “so that we’re building the public uprising that’s demanding the action and the decisions that we need at the provincial level.”
You can still add your voice to support the CodeBlue BC plan here.
The Canadian Freshwater Alliance is a project on MakeWay’s shared platform, which provides operational supports, governance, and charitable expertise for changemakers. They are among a group of projects on the platform, including BC Freshwater Initiative, Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW) and Our Living Waters, working to connect the place-based solutions, policy responses, and community engagement required to achieve the ambitious goal of all waters in Canada in good health by 2030.
