Building Local Capacity for Stewardship and Sustainability: The Role of Community-Based Watershed Management in Chilliwack, British Columbia‪.‬

The Problem: Limits to Watershed Sustainability There is increasing recognition in society regarding the importance of the natural environment in sustaining life, society, and the economy (Fraser Basin Council, 1997; British Columbia Round Table of the Environment and Economy, 1993; Hodge and Taggart, 1992; Nozick, 1992). A sustainable community would use environmental resources for human needs without undermining the ability of natural systems to function over time (Zachary, 1995). Outdated and inadequate modes of community planning and land and resource management at all levels of government have allowed significant adverse impacts to occur to the degree that the sustainability of the earth's natural resources and ecosystems is now in question. Human, animal, and plant communities are threatened because the earth's life support systems are being degraded. Human capacity to control, modify, and destroy nature has jumped ahead of human wisdom to develop communities and use natural resources in a manner that respects natural, social, and economic limits.