Hello Everyone! My name is Lucas Mollame and I am a second-year Master student at the University of Waterloo in the School of Planning. Aside from my interest in all things environmental planning, I enjoy hiking, kayaking, the Toronto Raptors, exploring new trails, and grape ice cream. I came to the School of Planning through my undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Ottawa and my time with the City of Cambridge’s Parks, Recreation and Culture Division. At the University of Ottawa, my practicum work revolved around user experiences with different commuting strategies to and from work. At the City of Cambridge, I worked with various team members to maintain key natural areas. For my research at the School of Planning, I am studying the advancement of municipal natural asset management through monitoring and engagement efforts. With the increasing effects of climate change on various municipalities across Canada and grey infrastructure assets under direct pressure, forward thinking local government leaders and stakeholders have looked to green infrastructure strategies to supplement municipal services through ecosystem services. One of these strategies is municipal natural asset management. In a traditional sense, asset management is defined as coordinating activities for an organization to realize the value from its assets to achieve various organizational objectives and goals. Therefore, natural asset management is translating this concept to our natural areas and recognizing that they can provide core local government services such as stormwater management. As well, natural assets often can provide these services at a lower capital and operating costs than built infrastructure. While some municipalities have begun to explore the integration and implementation of municipal natural asset management, stronger evidence, including systematic evaluation would foster support among municipal officials and staff. Over the past few months, my adviser, Michael Drescher, and I have been working to create an evaluation framework for municipal natural asset management projects occurring across Canada. To prepare, we conducted a comprehensive literature review on ecosystem services, nature-based solutions, green infrastructure, and program evaluation. In collaboration with the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative (MNAI) we have built a program logic model as well as an evaluation matrix. While we have developed several indicators for the outcome streams in our program logic model, MNAI will be selecting the most relevant indicators for their projects. From there, we will contact relevant staff at our project communities to begin the evaluation. For municipalities, this research will create a flexible and adaptive evaluation framework that can be used for other natural asset management projects. What we are attempting to do here is to create a set of indicators that can be applied in a variety of settings for various communities. As well, in order to push natural asset management into the mainstream, evaluations play a large role in confirming the validity of this approach. For this research, this could mean securing funding opportunities and partnerships with critical stakeholders in other municipalities wanting to adopt municipal natural asset management. As well, this research will establish an evidence database of beneficial outcomes of municipal natural asset management. Taking a long-term perspective, we hope that this research can support enhanced service provision to communities, improved management of community asset risk, and widespread ecosystem conservation and protection. Personally, my interest in this project lies in my dedication to conservation and environmental stewardship. I have enjoyed natural areas such as waterfronts, beaches, parks, and urban trails for all of my life. This love has then evolved into academic interests and ultimately, a career path. I believe that Canadian municipalities have the capacity to be leaders in our efforts against loss of biodiversity and climate change. As well, I also think it is critical to mention that I am concerned about the devastating effects of climate change. These concerns are not only for catastrophic global events, but events that could be felt at home. However, this concern serves as a consistent motivation to work in a field where concrete environmental changes are possible. While my confidence is prone to wavering, my resolve remains steadfast. It is my hope that this research begins a long career in fighting against climate change and restoring our world’s ecology. Moving forward, our next steps in the project will be to build our survey questions and interview guide and then to receive ethical clearance for both of these pieces. Next, we will contact relevant stakeholders and local government staff to schedule interviews and meetings. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be conducting these interviews remotely. If you are interested in finding out more about this research, please follow this blog or follow me on twitter at @LMollameMNAM. Lucas Mollame
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