Reaching out to the community doesn’t exceed the grasp of the Sustainable Development
Research Institute (SDRI) in UBC’s Faculty of Graduate Studies. It is developing
exciting, innovative approaches to engage the public in both understanding and
action.
“The world is awash in doom and gloom and too many people think nothing can
be done to save the planet,” says SDRI’s director John Robinson, who leads the
Georgia Basin Futures Project. “We disagree and are working with the public
so they understand their options and roles they can play in determining their
future.”
SDRI, a UBC think-tank, involves researchers at UBC, SFU and the UVic. At
the beginning of the year it was awarded $2.5 million from the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council for a five-year Georgia Basin Futures Project
to enhance human well-being while protecting ecological health in the Lower
Mainland and southeastern Vancouver Island by the year 2040.
An additional $1.5 million has been raised from 12 partner organizations in
the community. Among this group are B.C. Hydro, the Greater Vancouver Regional
District, The Vancouver Sun, Science World, Environment Canada, the Ministry
of Environment, Lands and Parks, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the David
Suzuki Foundation, Westcoast Energy, and the National Research Council.
The Georgia Basin Futures Project includes two dozen researchers from a wide
variety of disciplines such as planning, public policy, economics, sociology,
health care, resource and environmental management, zoology and global environmental
change.
The expert knowledge of the research team will be contained in QUEST, a user-friendly
computer modelling system developed for the Lower Fraser Valley by SDRI and
Envision Sustainability Tools, Inc.
In a series of workshops, public meetings, focus groups, school programs and
Web-based interactions with the public, the project will generate hundreds of
scenarios.
Researchers will provide information on how ecological, social and economic
systems interact. Citizens will then make decisions about populations, transportation,
land use, social health and a wide range of other areas.
An example of the project’s innovations in public involvement is the 540 square
metres of exhibits and displays to be built at Science World by the year 2001.
“The centrepiece is a 75-seat decision theatre inside a geodesic dome,” says
Robinson. “It contains a personal envisioning game in which participants press
buttons to vote on their planning preferences. They will then see the outcome
of their decisions and be able to continue on through the decades.”
“During this process the general public will become more aware of technical,
ecological, social, economic and policy implications and see the trade-offs
and consequences of their choices,” he adds. “This information will become part
of a database which will be analysed, for example, by age, ethnicity and gender.”
The public consultation process will also involve a wide range of government
planners, community leaders, decision-makers and non-government organizations.
As the project reaches out to the public it is also adding to its list of
partners and collaborating with other similar case studies of rapidly urbanizing
regions.
“The ecological goal is to remain within the earth’s carrying capacity, the
social goal is to create and maintain societies that satisfy individual and
community aspirations, and the economic goal is to ensure adequate standards
of living,” says Robinson. “All three are linked and must be satisfied simultaneously.”
“Our research is interdisciplinary, which is a hallmark of UBC’s Faculty of
Graduate Studies,” he says. “But to actually achieve our goal — sustainability
in the Georgia Basin in the next 40 years — we need to actively involve as
many people as possible.”
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