|
State of Environment Reporting for British
Columbia
British Columbia Ministry of Environment,
Lands and Parks /
Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection
ESSA was contracted to prepare the first State
of Environment (SOE) Report for British Columbia, a joint effort
of the federal and provincial governments. The project required
that ESSA objectively synthesize both qualitative and quantitative
information, and present it in a form easily understandable by a
non-scientific audience. Particularly important challenges were
providing an ecosystem context for each component and topic, and
developing significance criteria that allow the reader to interpret
the meaning of presented trends and status information. The report
was written for a target audience of environmentally interested
members of the general public, and presented a provincial-scale
examination of major environmental components (air, water, land,
biota).
Since this initial effort, ESSA has continued
to be active in provincial SOE reporting. Unlike the story-format
of the first report, more recent SOE reports consist of a collection
of more concise briefs on specific environmental indicators. In
accordance with this new indicator-sheet style, ESSA prepared two-page
indicator sheets on Groundwater and Water Supply in British Columbia
for the 1996 report, and on Water Use for the 2000 report. For each,
ESSA evaluated and interpreted the data and necessary caveats, provided
supporting text explaining the rationale for the key indicators
selected, presented relevant information in a manner easy to understand
by the general public, and consolidated it to fit a very tight page
limit.
Most recently, ESSA researched and wrote a report
listing indicators of non-timber values in B.C.'s forests that had
been published within and outside of government in the past five
years, and the messages these indicators conveyed. The objective
was to learn what was being said regarding the sustainability of
B.C.'s forests from a non-timber perspective, whether the messages
from various sectors (provincial government, federal government,
industry, non-governmental organizations, academia) were similar
or contradictory, and to examine the range of indicators that were
being used to convey this information.
|
