丁香园AV

Would you support urban development policies that save governments money, filter toxic runoff, reduce heat stress, improve mental health and build resilience to climate change? And if we told you these policies could do all that while protecting wild salmon, would you want to implement them immediately? 

Using green infrastructure which relies on nature for solving urban and climate challenges could achieve this. The Salmon-Safe BC program has been promoting this solution to protect wild salmon and enhance water quality for years through their eco-certification. With support from the Fraser Basin Council and 丁香园AV鈥檚 Pacific Water Research Centre in the Faculty of Environment, researchers compared government policies and regulations to the stricter requirements of Salmon-Safe and identified significant gaps that could be addressed with updated policy and increased education. 

Raising awareness about the numerous and affordable benefits green infrastructure provides will garner public, political, and developer support. 

鈥淲e need to invite nature back into our cities. We have been working against it for too long and unlike salmon, need to go with the flow by embracing green infrastructure鈥� continues McDonald. 

Salmon are declining due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Designing with nature to reduce additional stressors from human development is essential. Metro Vancouver is situated at the mouth of one of the world鈥檚 most productive salmon river networks. As the most urbanized watershed in the province, impacts of development activities drain directly into salmon habitats. However, stronger policy and enforcement promoting a 鈥榙esign with nature鈥� approach can mitigate adverse side-effects of urbanization while providing multiple societal, cultural, economic, and environmental benefits. As noted by experts, we know what to do, we know how to do it, we just need to actually do it. 

Read the entire report here.