With fall blowing in, come some fresh updates for our project “Advancing Municipal Natural Asset Management through Monitoring and Engagement”! I have just completed the interview guide and survey questions for my research and have officially submitted our ethics application. We are hopeful that we can receive word in the next few weeks, complete revisions as necessary, and then start contacting our stakeholders for remote (because of the pandemic measures) interviews. One factor that has been a major theme throughout this initial scoping process (and is true of all evaluations) is the need to carefully consider the goals of the evaluation in every stage of the process. From building our initial program logic model to creating these interview questions, we have had to determine how our evaluation questions match up to the expected program outcomes and how to find answers to those questions in our interviews. One of our most valuable resources in building this framework has been our literature database with close to 200 documents. Through the MAXQDA analysis software, we have compiled a variety of academic and grey literature on topics such as asset management, program and plan evaluation, natural assets, green infrastructure, and ecosystem services. These efforts have led us to a vast wealth of knowledge on possible indicators, evaluation questions, community responses, and analysis techniques that will inform how we conduct the rest of the study. Through some of the key software functions, we have been able to code this literature with almost 300 subcodes to show relationships and connections throughout the text. These subcodes vary from “Nature-based solutions monitoring tools” to “Green infrastructure delivery performance”. Hopefully this sweeping approach will not only be useful in this research but in other research projects as well. Throughout this past spring and summer, many of you may have seen announcements of the difficulties various Canadian municipalities are facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these difficulties have centred on the lack of municipal funds required to service their respective municipalities. This could be potentially devastating. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) had reached out to the federal government for aid. Professor Drescher and I wrote a piece for The Conservation on this very issue that was published in June. You can read it here. From our time of publishing to now there have been quite a number of updates. Most notably, the federal government announced in mid-July $19 billion dollars of funding for COVID-19 supports, with much of that directed towards municipalities to continue delivering their essential services. While this finding is an excellent stopgap for our municipalities, I would still argue that municipal leaders need to look to new strategies for service provision. In federal politics, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and the Federal Liberal government seem to be focused on “building back better” (a term that originated in the context of natural disaster recovery) by investing in and creating a green economy. Recently, new Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said that this recovery plan is too narrowly focused on a green economy. However, as this piece in the Globe and Mail highlights, Mr. O’Toole’s platform calls for ending the federal carbon tax, reversing the ban on oil tankers off the northern B.C. coast, and changing the review process for large projects. While Mr. O’Toole would like to say that the Liberals have forgotten about small businesses, I would be remiss to forget about all the small mom-and-pop oil tanker shops Mr. O’Toole is defending. In fact, I would argue that investing in something like the retrofitting of older buildings, many of which house small businesses and restaurants, would greatly benefit local economies and the majority of Canadians. As well, a focus on a green economy prepares us for climate change, an economic disaster that would far outpace COVID-19. Coupled with this larger announcement has been a string of smaller announcements, from the federal government and other organizations, in traditional asset management programs for various municipalities across Canada. When read together, these announcements can be seen as an encouragement from our federal leaders to “work with what we have”. Hopefully, this messaging for asset management will lead more municipalities to learn about natural assets and sustainable service delivery. This is especially relevant, as due to various restrictions throughout the summer, many people made an effort to “rediscover nature”. In doing so, local residents have learned of the complex and varied services offered by our local ecosystems as well as a duty of care for these natural areas. I would argue that these factors have created a strong catalyst for more municipalities to explore municipal natural asset management. Taking a view of the bigger picture, we’ve seen the adoption of municipal natural asset management policy promoted as a cost-saving practice in addition to an environmental stewardship practice. But beyond that, the COVID-19 pandemic and our response to it has also made many observers critically aware of how this may translate to our response to climate change. Hopefully, our reliance on nature as an avenue for recreation during the pandemic and a renewed sense of concern for our preparedness to climate change, should lead to leaders exploring policy that addresses these concerns. Lucas Mollame
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September 2020
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