Islands Trust Conservancy Board regular meeting, March 14, 2023

[0:00:02] Trustee Smith: So good morning. Thank you all for joining us today for the Islands Trust Conservancy Board

[0:00:07] Trustee Smith: meeting. I want to begin the meeting by acknowledging that we are fortunate to be

[0:00:12] Trustee Smith: able to gather today in locations across the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people.

[0:00:18] Trustee Smith: I'm Risa Smith, Vice Chair of the Islands Trust Conservancy and Provincial Appointee to the

[0:00:23] Trustee Smith: Islands Trust Conservancy Board. I'm joined today by Toby Elliott, Gabriola Island Trustee and

[0:00:30] Trustee Smith: and elected member, Susan Yates,

[0:00:32] Trustee Smith: Gabriel a trustee and elected member

[0:00:34] Trustee Smith: and Grant Scott, Hornby Island trustee and elected member.

[0:00:38] Trustee Smith: The Islands Trust Conservancy Chair, Linda Adams

[0:00:41] Trustee Smith: sends her regrets as she had another commitment today.

[0:00:45] Trustee Smith: Together we make up the Islands Trust Conservancy Board.

[0:00:48] Trustee Smith: This meeting is being conducted electronically

[0:00:51] Trustee Smith: and the regular portion of the meeting is open

[0:00:54] Trustee Smith: to the public to attend as witnesses.

[0:00:56] Trustee Smith: We have public comments and delegation standing items as part of our meetings.

[0:01:02] Trustee Smith: To make a delegation, please send information to staff three weeks prior to a meeting.

[0:01:07] Trustee Smith: For those wishing to provide public comment, we do our best to accommodate you.

[0:01:13] Trustee Smith: And you may wish to limit the comments to under five minutes.

[0:01:17] Trustee Smith: Attendees are welcome to send any questions or comments by email to our staff,

[0:01:21] Trustee Smith: whose contact information is available at our website, www.islamstrustconservancy.ca.

[0:01:30] Trustee Smith: We're grateful for the ability to have electronic meetings.

[0:01:34] Trustee Smith: Trustees, staff, and the public don't have to travel,

[0:01:37] Trustee Smith: and we're able to limit our greenhouse gas emissions.

[0:01:40] Trustee Smith: All of you connecting to this meeting today have different types of computer equipment,

[0:01:45] Trustee Smith: phones, and ways they connect to the internet, including dial-up.

[0:01:49] Trustee Smith: This meeting may have challenges, but I hope everyone will remember this situation is unique and unfamiliar, and I hope we can all be understanding and supportive.

[0:02:00] Trustee Smith: And of course, over time, we're all more used to using this kind of forum anyways.

[0:02:05] Trustee Smith: We have some staff members joining us today.

[0:02:10] Trustee Smith: So we can't see the staff members on the screen because we're sharing a screen.

[0:02:14] Trustee Smith: screen um so uh kate is there any way to fix that or um i'll just call their names out and

[0:02:22] Trustee Smith: they won't be able to

[0:02:23] Trustee Smith: show who they are i

[0:02:23] Manager Emmings: do see them all on the um i can actually stop the share

[0:02:27] Manager Emmings: maybe that's the way to go and then people yeah

[0:02:29] Trustee Smith: anybody using one screen won't be able to see

[0:02:32] Trustee Smith: them so maybe the staff member can put up your hand as i call your name so public knows who you

[0:02:37] Trustee Smith: are uh kate emmings is our island's trust conservancy manager nula morphy is our property

[0:02:44] Trustee Smith: management specialist katherine martel is our ecosystem protection specialist jemma green is

[0:02:52] Trustee Smith: our covenant management and outreach specialist and carmen smith is our acting communication

[0:02:57] Trustee Smith: specialist wendy tyrell she's here yep is our species at risk coordinator and corlin strappen

[0:03:05] Trustee Smith: is our admin assistant and minute taker.

[0:03:09] Trustee Smith: This meeting is an official forum

[0:03:12] Trustee Smith: of the Islands Trust Conservancy to make decisions

[0:03:14] Trustee Smith: about land management and securement,

[0:03:16] Trustee Smith: as well as conservation planning

[0:03:18] Trustee Smith: and related outreach, fundraising and communications.

[0:03:22] Trustee Smith: Before we begin, I'd like to remind board members

[0:03:25] Trustee Smith: and participants to mute yourself when you're not speaking,

[0:03:29] Trustee Smith: reduce background noise, digitally raise your hand

[0:03:32] Trustee Smith: to speak or vote.

[0:03:33] Trustee Smith: and please turn off your mic and camera when leaving for breaks so i'd like to call this

[0:03:39] Trustee Smith: meeting to order now everybody has an agenda in front of them um okay

[0:03:47] Voice 3: there's the agenda um

[0:03:49] Voice 3: so um i don't have uh

[0:03:55] Trustee Smith: are there any additions um we want to get the agenda approved are there

[0:04:00] Trustee Smith: any additions to the agenda that's presented so grant you might want to add

[0:04:06] Voice 3: a agenda item at the

[0:04:08] Voice 3: the end there any uh yeah yes i'd like to add

[0:04:15] Voice 2: uh a showing of conservancy hornby island

[0:04:20] Voice 2: silver highway about the herring that migrated to strait of georgia coming in here right now

[0:04:25] Voice 2: 10 minutes long it was very well received at herring festival i'd like to add that

[0:04:29] Voice 2: as you say the end of the meeting and i'd also like to um some somewhere uh in in the meeting

[0:04:37] Voice 2: uh discuss the possibility of better connections between the trust conservancy and the local uh

[0:04:49] Voice 2: island conservancies i'd like to add that to the agenda i'm not sure where the best place is i know

[0:04:58] Voice 2: there's a spot in there somewhere

[0:05:00] Trustee Smith: um we could do it under i think

[0:05:05] Manager Emmings: i would put that under

[0:05:07] Manager Emmings: items for discussion okay

[0:05:10] Trustee Smith: under 5

[0:05:11] Voice 12: .2 yeah okay that's

[0:05:15] Manager Emmings: 5.2.3 um yeah and what would you like to

[0:05:21] Manager Emmings: call the agenda item trustee scott um um trust

[0:05:27] Voice 2: board connections with island conservancies

[0:05:31] Voice 2: no i guess not the board not it's not going to be the board the trust conservancies connections

[0:05:40] Voice 2: connections with islands conservancies okay

[0:05:47] Trustee Smith: so i just called it islands trust conservancy

[0:05:50] Trustee Smith: and local conservancy relations is that

[0:05:54] Voice 3: sure perfect okay thanks any other um additions to

[0:06:02] Voice 3: the agenda no

[0:06:08] Trustee Smith: i don't see any okay so then um kate i'm not sure but do we need to officially

[0:06:14] Trustee Smith: approve the agenda you

[0:06:16] Manager Emmings: can approve it by consent okay

[0:06:19] Trustee Smith: so I'll assume are there

[0:06:22] Trustee Smith: any dissenters to the agenda just raise your hand in that case the agenda is

[0:06:29] Trustee Smith: approved by consent the next agenda item is the rise and report and I'm not sure

[0:06:42] Trustee Smith: who is it kate are you gonna talk to that um

[0:06:47] Manager Emmings: so let's see here uh we can just note that um at its

[0:06:54] Manager Emmings: last board meeting um actually corlin am i seeing these these are the items for ryzen report here

[0:07:01] Manager Emmings: yes uh so at its

[0:07:02] Manager Emmings: last uh board meeting islands trust conservancy rose and reported on three

[0:07:08] Manager Emmings: items um one of which was the approval of the morrison waxler biodiversity protection legacy

[0:07:13] Manager Emmings: legacy fund grant of $4,614.75 to expand the Nighthawk Hill Natural Area Protection Tax

[0:07:21] Manager Emmings: Exemption Program covenant on North Pender. You also did a rise in report to note that the board

[0:07:28] Manager Emmings: approved an opportunity fund grant of $50,000 to be awarded to the Nature Conservancy of Canada

[0:07:33] Manager Emmings: for the acquisition of 161 hectares of land on Reginald Hill on Salt Spring Island. And finally,

[0:07:39] Manager Emmings: Finally, the Conservancy did a RISEN report to note that it received a legacy donation of $25,000 for the purposes of implementing a Western Screech Isle project, research project on Link Island.

[0:07:54] Voice 3: Are there any questions about those, the RISEN report? I don't

[0:08:03] Trustee Smith: see any. So, why am I getting these messages?

[0:08:06] Trustee Smith: Okay, so we'll move on to the next step.

[0:08:09] Trustee Smith: You all, the next is the minutes of the previous meeting

[0:08:13] Trustee Smith: and the resolutions without meeting.

[0:08:15] Trustee Smith: You've all had a chance to look at the minutes

[0:08:18] Trustee Smith: of the last meeting.

[0:08:19] Trustee Smith: Are there any changes that anybody would like to make

[0:08:21] Trustee Smith: to

[0:08:22] Voice 3: the minutes of the last meeting or corrections?

[0:08:29] Voice 3: Let's see, I don't see any hands.

[0:08:34] Trustee Smith: So the minutes of the last meeting will be approved.

[0:08:38] Trustee Smith: There was one resolution without meeting.

[0:08:42] Trustee Smith: and that was for me to attend the BC Coastal Movement Strategy.

[0:08:47] Trustee Smith: Is there any changes that people would like to make to that resolution?

[0:08:51] Trustee Smith: Did we get it right?

[0:08:53] Manager Emmings: Yes, this is just provided for information,

[0:08:55] Manager Emmings: and so that it's on record, public record.

[0:08:58] Trustee Smith: Okay.

[0:09:01] Trustee Smith: So that's that.

[0:09:03] Trustee Smith: So we finished that item then of the minutes and coordination.

[0:09:08] Trustee Smith: The next

[0:09:09] Trustee Smith: thing is the follow-up action report.

[0:09:12] Trustee Smith: and um i don't know if there's anything that we really need to speak to here i'm just going to

[0:09:18] Trustee Smith: pull it up on my screen

[0:09:20] Manager Emmings: here i have one i wouldn't mind providing an update on and then i'm happy to

[0:09:25] Manager Emmings: take questions from the board okay um just a note to say that okay it was from august 24th

[0:09:33] Voice 3: um

[0:09:34] Manager Emmings: there

[0:09:35] Manager Emmings: we are uh so staff have direction to work with the steering committee of the sydney island ecological

[0:09:39] Manager Emmings: restoration project to develop waivers for sydney island covenants related to to that project and i

[0:09:46] Manager Emmings: just wanted to let you know that the salas strata actually voted at its last meeting to allow the

[0:09:51] Manager Emmings: project to proceed um so the board will be um considering waivers for those covenants over

[0:09:58] Manager Emmings: there to allow for um deer eradication work to proceed fallow deer eradication work to proceed

[0:10:05] Manager Emmings: at its and we're targeting our July meeting for those waivers to come forward and there will have

[0:10:12] Manager Emmings: been some news clips circulated to board members in recently related to that that's the only update

[0:10:21] Manager Emmings: I have I don't know if anybody else on staff has anything they want to add but we're also happy to

[0:10:25] Manager Emmings: take take questions from the board

[0:10:29] Voice 10: just a really quick question Kate because I forgot to add this

[0:10:34] Voice 10: to the agenda um uh is has there been any communication at all between the conservancy

[0:10:42] Voice 10: board and um main island trustees about their fallow deer problem um

[0:10:51] Manager Emmings: yes there has been um

[0:10:54] Manager Emmings: actually the board i think prior to the election in october try to remember when that was

[0:11:01] Manager Emmings: the board actually received some correspondence from the main island local trust committee

[0:11:05] Manager Emmings: about the fallow deer issue over there and i can recirculate that to the board for information

[0:11:11] Manager Emmings: they have an ongoing issue with fallow deer on main island that has been existing certainly for

[0:11:18] Manager Emmings: as long as i've worked with islands trust conservancy and some desire on the part of

[0:11:23] Manager Emmings: the local trust committee to see that addressed staff have met with the main island local trust

[0:11:30] Manager Emmings: committee well that main island trustees i should say and the province and then a few other

[0:11:36] Manager Emmings: interested parties to um to discuss the matter it's um i think we brought in the ministry of

[0:11:42] Manager Emmings: agriculture into the conversation because it's actually a release from an agricultural population

[0:11:47] Manager Emmings: of fallow deer um and there's certainly an interest from current trustees on maine to see

[0:11:55] Manager Emmings: see management of fallow deer over there and there hasn't been much traction with respect

[0:12:01] Manager Emmings: to that.

[0:12:03] Manager Emmings: My hope is that as we move forward with this project on Sydney Island that we'll have a

[0:12:07] Manager Emmings: little bit of information in our pockets to consider what might happen on Sydney Island

[0:12:13] Manager Emmings: moving forward.

[0:12:14] Manager Emmings: And I guess my only comment is that it would be quite a big project to undertake to look

[0:12:21] Manager Emmings: look at managing fallow deer over on main island indeed

[0:12:25] Voice 10: it would thanks that's that's really all i

[0:12:28] Voice 10: needed to know thank you hey thanks are there

[0:12:31] Voice 3: any other uh questions about the um uh the action list

[0:12:37] Voice 3: no okay

[0:12:42] Trustee Smith: great thanks a lot kate um the next um and also kate thanks for the uh links to all those

[0:12:48] Trustee Smith: news articles i think they're really helpful um to keep sending those to board members so now we're

[0:12:55] Trustee Smith: getting into the actual uh meat of the meeting and we're ahead of schedule which is awesome

[0:13:01] Trustee Smith: five minutes so that's looking good for you grant but who knows uh the first meeting uh the first

[0:13:06] Trustee Smith: item relates to the itc work planning and there's going to be a request for decision so i think

[0:13:13] Trustee Smith: probably kate you're going to speak to this

[0:13:15] Manager Emmings: yes i will speak to this item um so um itc staff have

[0:13:23] Manager Emmings: been starting to turn our heads to our work programs for the year and of course as we do

[0:13:29] Manager Emmings: that we start to consider which projects we can undertake and which ones are a little bit tougher

[0:13:34] Manager Emmings: to integrate into to what we have planned for the year last year around this time the board

[0:13:41] Manager Emmings: did consider a resolution that's not dissimilar to the one that we're proposing for this meeting

[0:13:48] Manager Emmings: largely to look at which projects the board wanted us to prioritize and which projects

[0:13:53] Manager Emmings: The board felt comfortable with us kind of putting on hold at the beginning of last year.

[0:13:59] Manager Emmings: It was feeling as if we were emerging from our pandemic protocols, which actually had a fairly major impact on on staff workloads and and our work programs.

[0:14:09] Manager Emmings: Through those few years that we were in the middle of the of the pandemic.

[0:14:13] Manager Emmings: We were also coming out of a time where we had quite a few staff changes.

[0:14:17] Manager Emmings: So, the staff that you see before you we have, I think it's five new staff within the last four or five years, some of them in the last couple of years, and then a few of us who have either changed positions or have gone on various leaves and temporary assignments

[0:14:34] Manager Emmings: and then are just coming back.

[0:14:35] Manager Emmings: So we're starting to see over the last year

[0:14:38] Manager Emmings: a bit of a leveling off of staffing

[0:14:40] Manager Emmings: and finally kind of coming into a cohesion

[0:14:43] Manager Emmings: of staff resourcing for the Allens Trust Conservancy.

[0:14:47] Manager Emmings: And in a way we've been over the last year

[0:14:50] Manager Emmings: in a bit of a catch-up mode.

[0:14:52] Manager Emmings: We did a great job, I think, coming through the pandemic

[0:14:55] Manager Emmings: in terms of keeping on top of the commitments

[0:14:58] Manager Emmings: that we have in terms of caring for land

[0:15:00] Manager Emmings: and moving forward in a good way

[0:15:01] Manager Emmings: with um with landowners who are interested in doing conservation on their land but there were

[0:15:06] Manager Emmings: a few things that suffered over that time period um one of which was our our sort of systems that

[0:15:12] Manager Emmings: we have in place for islands trust conservancy things like databases that manage our contacts

[0:15:18] Manager Emmings: ways to manage our our workload for property management we have 113 properties and growing

[0:15:26] Manager Emmings: that we manage in some way and they all have different management priorities and so staff

[0:15:31] Manager Emmings: we're recognizing the need for some sort of technology to help us to prioritize items for

[0:15:38] Manager Emmings: those those properties and then just also with the turnover of staff recognition that we need

[0:15:46] Manager Emmings: to do things like revisit job descriptions write procedures for different parts of our workload

[0:15:50] Manager Emmings: So a very, I know it sounds very administrative, but that that was a big, a big need identified last year.

[0:16:01] Manager Emmings: And, and then the other pieces that were identified were things like our climate change project, a desire to move forward with reconciliation work and and a desire and a need to move forward with our Islands Trust Conservancy plan.

[0:16:14] Manager Emmings: plan. So we put some of our work on pause last year to make that happen. And one of

[0:16:23] Manager Emmings: the big pieces of work, well, that was paused was our acquisitions and covenant program,

[0:16:29] Manager Emmings: in the sense that we decided or the board decided that it would only be looking at high

[0:16:35] Manager Emmings: priority lands for conservation, and lands over eight hectares in size. And so staff

[0:16:40] Manager Emmings: staff essentially started to tell applicants that they would likely not be able to get to their applications until a later time, with some exceptions where we saw priorities and brought those forward to the board.

[0:16:55] Manager Emmings: We also did some management of our monitoring workload in that we decided that we wouldn't be monitoring properties that were held by Island Conservancies or other conservation organizations, given that they are fairly well trusted in terms of what they do on their lands.

[0:17:16] Manager Emmings: And so those were not monitored last year.

[0:17:22] Manager Emmings: what we're finding is that that pause has been it's been good we've started to get our teeth

[0:17:28] Manager Emmings: into a few of these items but unfortunately we haven't been able to proceed to a conclusion on

[0:17:34] Manager Emmings: a lot of them so we're still in process on some of our climate change project work we're still

[0:17:40] Manager Emmings: in process in our um some of our systems that we're developing with respect to you know databases

[0:17:47] Manager Emmings: bases that have now expanded to include the rest of islands trust in terms of development and then

[0:17:52] Manager Emmings: we're also still exploring ways to address some of the challenges with managing the number of

[0:17:57] Manager Emmings: properties that we manage um so staff in considering all of this um have put forward

[0:18:04] Manager Emmings: a suggest or a recommendation that the board continued to allow us to pause some of the um

[0:18:11] Manager Emmings: the work that we've had under um that we get the pressure to do and i'll just uh pull up the

[0:18:18] Manager Emmings: resolution that we're suggesting um and that is that we focus for the next fiscal year on the

[0:18:24] Manager Emmings: climate change project our land management land securement and targeted outreach components of

[0:18:29] Manager Emmings: the species at risk program first nations engagement associated with the development

[0:18:34] Manager Emmings: of the islands trust conservancy plan and then the administrative needs that i've kind of outlined

[0:18:39] Manager Emmings: And that we believe will result in a requirement to delay revisions of property management plans. So we have a few property management plans that are getting dated and need to be revised.

[0:18:54] Manager Emmings: But we're hoping to kind of pause that still this year to allow us to do this other work.

[0:19:01] Manager Emmings: development of a reconciliation action plan we've been without a um a senior intergovernmental

[0:19:07] Manager Emmings: policy advisor for the last gosh almost a year now and that position is is starting to move into

[0:19:15] Manager Emmings: a hiring process and so the hope is that we are going to have some assistance from that position

[0:19:19] Manager Emmings: sometime in the next i don't know three to six months um but my guess is that that that person

[0:19:26] Manager Emmings: will be getting their feet under them and will be a little bit delayed on getting into that

[0:19:30] Manager Emmings: reconciliation action plan so we're proposing delaying that until next fiscal year monitoring

[0:19:36] Manager Emmings: of lands that are protected by other conservation agencies or that are considered at low risk of

[0:19:41] Manager Emmings: breach or trespass outreach and communications that generate new conservation proposals

[0:19:47] Manager Emmings: work on conservation proposals for lands not considered a very high priority for

[0:19:53] Manager Emmings: conservation and areas under eight hectares in size and then the placing of covenants on islands

[0:19:58] Manager Emmings: trust conservancy nature reserves um and i guess the only other thing that i will say um and i'm

[0:20:05] Manager Emmings: happy to take questions about the request for decision before you is that this is actually a

[0:20:10] Manager Emmings: bit of a hard hard one for us to um to juggle and i guess what i will say to the board is i have

[0:20:17] Manager Emmings: provided a couple of alternatives in case the board wishes to go a different direction

[0:20:23] Manager Emmings: because of course it's always hard for us as staff to say hey we're going to actually stop doing

[0:20:29] Manager Emmings: taking proposals for additional conservation lands and and to do things like work on management plans

[0:20:36] Manager Emmings: for existing properties etc so there's a couple of or there is an alternative presented and we

[0:20:43] Manager Emmings: can we can do variations on the resolutions proposed but if the board wanted to it could

[0:20:49] Manager Emmings: decide to focus on securement opportunities for the coming year and instead delay work on

[0:20:54] Manager Emmings: some of the more strategic pieces like the reconciliation or sorry the regional conservation

[0:20:59] Manager Emmings: plan evaluation and the climate change project to help free up some staff time to actually take on

[0:21:05] Manager Emmings: those those applications that we do get through the door on a regular basis and are struggling

[0:21:10] Manager Emmings: struggling to juggle. So perhaps I'll pause there and take any questions at the direction of the

[0:21:17] Manager Emmings: chair.

[0:21:18] Trustee Smith: I see there's already hands. I'm just going to say one thing. I think this is important to

[0:21:22] Trustee Smith: hear from all of us on this because this is really a decision between do we put more effort into our

[0:21:28] Trustee Smith: core work or do we take the more strategic work on? And I'm sure we all sort of have opinions on

[0:21:36] Trustee Smith: on that. So I'll start with Trustee Yates, who's got her hand up already.

[0:21:40] Voice 10: Thank you, Risa. So a

[0:21:43] Voice 10: couple of things. This is very helpful. Thank you so much, Kate. I worry that we have people

[0:21:52] Voice 10: in the wings waiting to, you know, ask the Islands Trust Conservancy to help them preserve and

[0:22:00] Voice 10: and protect some special areas.

[0:22:02] Voice 10: So one question is the people that we have to put on hold,

[0:22:08] Voice 10: will they continue to wait?

[0:22:10] Voice 10: And then the comment related to that is,

[0:22:13] Voice 10: we know and we have said this many times

[0:22:17] Voice 10: that most of the land in the Islands Trust Area

[0:22:21] Voice 10: is owned privately.

[0:22:23] Voice 10: And the best way for us to preserve and protect

[0:22:26] Voice 10: tech in the trust area is to work with private landowners so i i am worried that um two things

[0:22:35] Voice 10: will they wait for us to come back to them and what does this do um you know what message are

[0:22:43] Voice 10: we sending to potential people who want to place a nap tap covenant um put a conservation covenant

[0:22:50] Voice 10: or donate land

[0:22:53] Trustee Smith: trustee trustee yates yes sorry kate did you want to speak to that or maybe we

[0:23:00] Trustee Smith: could hear from the other trustees because i think that's a um i mean we'll all be speaking

[0:23:05] Trustee Smith: to that these same issues and then have a discussion uh do any other of the trustees

[0:23:10] Trustee Smith: want to speak at

[0:23:11] Voice 3: this point uh trustee scott i see your hand up and yeah

[0:23:17] Trustee Smith: i see both trustee

[0:23:18] Trustee Smith: other thoughts so trustee scott do you want to speak please yes

[0:23:21] Voice 2: thank you um i absolutely agree

[0:23:23] Voice 2: with susan there's nothing more discouraging than someone who approaches um either the local trust

[0:23:29] Voice 2: committee or rambi about an issue or especially this that they're willing to put their land

[0:23:35] Voice 2: forward and to say somebody says well i'm sorry but we can't deal with you right now so i i think

[0:23:41] Voice 2: we have to find a way of not putting them on the back burner but um i'm not exactly sure how

[0:23:47] Voice 2: but that's um i just want to say i agree with susan there thank you thanks grant uh trustee

[0:23:55] Trustee Elliott: elia thank you um yes and i do note that there's a balance to be struck because if if we're accepting

[0:24:06] Trustee Elliott: more lands or saying okay let's let's work with you on conserving your lands but we don't have

[0:24:12] Trustee Elliott: staff capacity because of these administrative needs that aren't being met, then there's still

[0:24:19] Trustee Elliott: going to be a delay, right? It's not, it's just how the, so accepting more lands means more

[0:24:27] Trustee Elliott: management, means more oversight, means our systems actually need to be working really well.

[0:24:35] Trustee Elliott: And if that's, if the systems are sort of failing, then it's going to create a delay in accepting

[0:24:40] Trustee Elliott: more lands anyway so i just wanted to put that forward there's definitely a balance i don't want

[0:24:45] Trustee Elliott: to see us turning away lands that are wanting to be donated but um i'd like to hear more about the

[0:24:51] Trustee Elliott: risk assessment for not addressing these um these maintenance sort of updates to our internal

[0:25:00] Trustee Elliott: databases and then my other question was around um yeah just wanting to know more about the climate

[0:25:05] Trustee Elliott: change project I looked for information on our website and I don't see any so just where is that

[0:25:13] Trustee Elliott: at in terms of phase one what was it trying to achieve um and what could we hope to accomplish

[0:25:20] Trustee Elliott: if that becomes a focus for the next year okay

[0:25:26] Trustee Smith: um thanks Toby um so maybe I'll speak too and then

[0:25:29] Trustee Smith: we'll let Kate respond to all of us because there's some similar things I put a lot of thought

[0:25:34] Trustee Smith: into this and um i i really think our core business really is i'm probably agreeing with

[0:25:42] Trustee Smith: susan on this our core business is really to preserve private lands in any way we can

[0:25:47] Trustee Smith: and we had had a workshop i can't remember if it was that was before or after the new board

[0:25:54] Trustee Smith: on communications trying to let people know who we are which would have then of course

[0:25:59] Trustee Smith: to encourage more people to preserve their lands so to me that's our core business and we really

[0:26:06] Trustee Smith: have to keep doing that so i worry um about not doing the outreach and communications that

[0:26:14] Trustee Smith: generate new conservation proposals and then not following up on those new conservation proposals

[0:26:19] Trustee Smith: and so the choice to me is between that and the climate change project and although the climate

[0:26:25] Trustee Smith: change project i think is important it is strategic thinking and i remember i had a

[0:26:33] Trustee Smith: colleague on galiana who once said to me just acquired land don't worry about all the

[0:26:38] Trustee Smith: biodiversity crisis and the climate change crisis just you know secure land so that you have

[0:26:44] Trustee Smith: something to work with when you're being more strategic so i really uh would rather see the

[0:26:51] Trustee Smith: climate change project deferred and um we keep the um outreach and communications and new

[0:27:01] Trustee Smith: conservation proposals so that's just my preference even though i don't want to see it i really see it

[0:27:07] Trustee Smith: deferred i do think it's it's strategic it's important but more important to me is getting

[0:27:14] Trustee Smith: the message out of who we are and getting um lands private landowners who want to save land to secure

[0:27:21] Trustee Smith: cure them and then um and it does seem to be an either or i also worry a little bit about putting

[0:27:28] Trustee Smith: their reconciliation action plan on hold although i think um when we hear from the about what

[0:27:37] Trustee Smith: happened at executive and trust board maybe they're doing that and we could just leverage

[0:27:41] Trustee Smith: off of that so so i would like to change some of these and bump up the outreach and communications

[0:27:48] Trustee Smith: and responding to new requests

[0:27:52] Trustee Smith: and put the climate change project on hold if we have to.

[0:27:57] Trustee Smith: So there's one more trustee who wants to speak

[0:27:59] Trustee Smith: and then I'll open it up to you, Kate.

[0:28:00] Trustee Smith: Trustee Scott, your hand is up.

[0:28:05] Trustee Smith: Grant,

[0:28:06] Voice 2: your hand is up.

[0:28:06] Voice 3: Yeah, okay.

[0:28:07] Voice 2: I was just looking to see if I was muted or not.

[0:28:09] Voice 2: Thank you.

[0:28:10] Voice 2: I agree with you on both of those points.

[0:28:15] Voice 2: On the reconciliation in First Nations,

[0:28:18] Voice 2: First Nations there's actually they're in here in two places one on the on the focus on First

[0:28:23] Voice 2: Nations engagement it's down an alternative now I when I read this I was really wondering is this

[0:28:28] Voice 2: not really a responsibility of the larger trust council representing all of us and uh does this

[0:28:36] Voice 2: have to be done by the the board because it seems here because it seems to be covered off in two

[0:28:41] Voice 2: different places and I'm not sure you know it seems to me that's the kind of they're the people

[0:28:46] Voice 2: that are going to hire we are going to hire the uh to replace lisa so i'm really wondering whether

[0:28:55] Voice 2: and and your point about um the climate change i i really think that's a responsibility i mean

[0:29:05] Voice 2: i don't think the people on her and beyond expecting that violence trust or the or the uh

[0:29:10] Voice 2: conservancy to do much about that's more a local issue on how we can do it locally otherwise it's

[0:29:16] Voice 2: provincial federal government all so i i don't know whether we're not you know we're not spreading

[0:29:21] Voice 2: ourselves the conservancy too thin with some of these things and focus on and just the way uh

[0:29:27] Voice 2: both uh what risa and susan said so anyway i'll just leave it at that and oh toby as well thank

[0:29:35] Voice 2: you so

[0:29:36] Trustee Smith: kate um uh susan has her hand up again i wonder uh susan should we let kate speak or do

[0:29:43] Trustee Smith: you want to add a new point just

[0:29:46] Voice 10: very quickly to um follow up with what Risa said in my mind

[0:29:51] Voice 10: um if we can secure land and protect it and work with private landowners that in itself

[0:30:00] Voice 10: works for climate change mitigation yes

[0:30:05] Voice 12: okay so uh kate

[0:30:08] Trustee Smith: do you want to respond to any of that

[0:30:10] Trustee Smith: or other stuff yeah

[0:30:11] Manager Emmings: no i've got a running list and i'm happy to hear from other staff members

[0:30:15] Manager Emmings: if uh if that makes sense too um so the first point i heard was just a concern about discouraging

[0:30:22] Manager Emmings: landowners from um conserving their land because we're we're sort of we're saying no essentially

[0:30:29] Manager Emmings: essentially, at the beginning of their application process.

[0:30:32] Manager Emmings: I will note that we do still turn folks away even when we are fully engaged in our acquisitions

[0:30:39] Manager Emmings: and covenant programs, just because sometimes their land is not of a sufficient size or

[0:30:45] Manager Emmings: doesn't have the conservation values that we're looking for so staff do use some discretion

[0:30:49] Manager Emmings: when we're having conversations with landowners and then always offer them the opportunity

[0:30:53] Manager Emmings: opportunity to, despite recommendations of staff, approach the board should they wish to.

[0:31:00] Manager Emmings: I also hear, though, the concerns around saying no. We've been finding it challenging over the

[0:31:07] Manager Emmings: last year to actually deliver that message. We have some good speaking notes. We've worked around

[0:31:12] Manager Emmings: the communications for that. And so there's a good rationale for putting a bit of our work on pause.

[0:31:18] Manager Emmings: but at the same time it's not a message that is um you know often welcomed by people who want to

[0:31:24] Manager Emmings: apply to do a conservation proposal and and we have seen that in some of our conversations with

[0:31:30] Manager Emmings: landowners where you know they're impatient to get going once they make the decision they're

[0:31:35] Manager Emmings: impatient to get going and so there is certainly a risk of um of potentially losing some folks who

[0:31:42] Manager Emmings: might be keen now but who either through changing life circumstances or through just um you know

[0:31:49] Manager Emmings: annoyance decide not to move forward um i also want to weigh that though and this goes speaks

[0:31:57] Manager Emmings: to kind of what trustee elliott was was mentioning against the risks associated with not being able

[0:32:03] Manager Emmings: to properly manage our lands and to have good systems in place to do that because of course

[0:32:09] Manager Emmings: I think the ability to cultivate good relationships with folks who want to donate to ITC

[0:32:15] Manager Emmings: begins with also being able to show them that we manage land well and that we care for it well

[0:32:20] Manager Emmings: so it's this interesting dance and balance between the two in my view and we do have some systems

[0:32:28] Manager Emmings: that are in need of work that we've hit a threshold in terms of the properties that we

[0:32:34] Manager Emmings: manage that we need to actually deal with our some of the systems we have in place in order

[0:32:38] Manager Emmings: to help staff do their work more efficiently and um yeah and with a bit more of a less time consuming

[0:32:46] Manager Emmings: um one like it's a bit time consuming to manage lands by looking at them on spreadsheets at this

[0:32:52] Manager Emmings: stage just given the number of lands that we're we're working with um so yes it is a balance um

[0:32:59] Manager Emmings: And then I guess what I will say in terms of I think there was also a comment about reconciliation and what parts belong with us versus what parts perhaps belong with Islands Trust Islands Trust does have a reconciliation action plan.

[0:33:15] Manager Emmings: The only pieces in that action plan that actually relate to the work of the Islands Trust Conservancy Board are really around education of board members and education of ITC staff.

[0:33:26] Manager Emmings: staff. The pieces that are not a part of that are things like how we approach policies with

[0:33:33] Manager Emmings: respect to land securement and land management. And those are the kinds of pieces that as

[0:33:39] Manager Emmings: we turn our minds to a reconciliation action plan are the things that I think we do need

[0:33:43] Manager Emmings: to address. Given the fact that the ITC board needs to move into a phase of developing its

[0:33:50] Manager Emmings: its ITC plan for the next iteration of the plan and the desire of the board to

[0:33:58] Manager Emmings: engage with First Nations in a good way around that. Staff's thought is that perhaps this coming

[0:34:04] Manager Emmings: year the focus in our reconciliation work might be on that work with nations around how we develop

[0:34:11] Manager Emmings: the ITC plan and that that might help to inform what policies and procedures we have that need

[0:34:17] Manager Emmings: need updating and need to be amended and so it might be a nice progression to move from those

[0:34:22] Manager Emmings: conversations around the ITC plan into a future reconciliation action plan and the board could

[0:34:29] Manager Emmings: consider if it would prefer not to have its own it could consider asking trust council to integrate

[0:34:35] Manager Emmings: some of those pieces into their plan but I do feel like there is probably a place to for the ITC

[0:34:41] Manager Emmings: board to have its own set of recommendations around activities policy movement as we move

[0:34:49] Manager Emmings: forward with reconciliation work so I don't think I probably answered the question of whether or not

[0:34:54] Manager Emmings: we should you know engage with further conservation proposals while pausing some of our strategic

[0:35:02] Manager Emmings: projects or vice versa I do think that that's really a conversation that the board needs to

[0:35:07] Manager Emmings: have i would caution the board against completely pausing things that are strategic in nature um

[0:35:12] Manager Emmings: because as trustee elliott points out it um it can just make our lives inefficient and and it's hard

[0:35:19] Manager Emmings: to maintain um those good management practices that we have in place on lands uh

[0:35:28] Trustee Smith: so here's what

[0:35:29] Trustee Smith: i'm hearing and i'll see if we can get a resolution thanks so much kate for those explanations so

[0:35:34] Trustee Smith: So I'm hearing that there's agreement that we want to keep the administrative needs component

[0:35:40] Trustee Smith: of what we're going to keep doing, which relates to all those things that Toby and Kate spoke

[0:35:45] Trustee Smith: to about better systems and updating our internal maintenance and that sort of thing.

[0:35:51] Trustee Smith: I'm hearing that we want to keep the First Nations engagement associated with the development

[0:35:57] Trustee Smith: of the ITC plan.

[0:35:59] Trustee Smith: I'm hearing that we want to, the first part on the species at risk program and land management,

[0:36:05] Trustee Smith: no one spoke to not keeping that.

[0:36:08] Trustee Smith: I'm hearing, and so if anybody here heard something different, I just want, I'm hearing

[0:36:13] Trustee Smith: that we do want to replace the priority work, put the climate change project on the delayed

[0:36:20] Trustee Smith: aid work and bump up work on outreach and communications that generate new proposals

[0:36:28] Trustee Smith: and responding to those proposals. I don't see anything of any choice here about responding to

[0:36:35] Trustee Smith: new proposals, but I think I'm hearing that people want us to make that a priority to respond to new

[0:36:42] Trustee Smith: proposals. So we would take the first one, the climate change project, put it on the deferred

[0:36:48] Trustee Smith: work i'm hearing that people are concerned about reconciliation but um uh in my way of thinking

[0:36:56] Trustee Smith: kate's explanation about that it's not that we're doing nothing on that we're going to

[0:37:01] Trustee Smith: do a first step in engagement in the itc plan so it's we may be deferring uh a bigger plan but

[0:37:08] Trustee Smith: we're still working in that area so i'm seeing so if there's any objections that i see um toby's

[0:37:15] Trustee Smith: hand up if you see uh the priorities differently toby thanks um

[0:37:20] Trustee Elliott: thanks for that summary that was

[0:37:22] Trustee Elliott: good um i did still want some information on the climate change project and maybe that could just

[0:37:28] Trustee Elliott: be there's a report um could you send it around because what i get a little bit worried about is

[0:37:35] Trustee Elliott: when things drop into the delay um sort of category um we don't really remember what we're

[0:37:42] Trustee Elliott: giving up because work is paused so i'm just not familiar with the project at all and so i just

[0:37:48] Trustee Elliott: kind of want to track uh what what phase one looked like and what we were anticipating doing

[0:37:54] Trustee Elliott: so that um we can make sure it gets slotted back into the work program if if we see the value and

[0:38:01] Trustee Elliott: so is it possible like i didn't find it anywhere on the website is there any is this just sort of

[0:38:09] Trustee Elliott: of an internal project that's monitoring specific lands for against a baseline or can you just

[0:38:15] Trustee Elliott: quickly summarize what the climate change project is i wonder if katherine could speak to that really

[0:38:21] Trustee Smith: quickly or yeah katherine or kate did you want to i

[0:38:24] Manager Emmings: just wanted to say something but then i will

[0:38:26] Manager Emmings: actually turn it over to katherine who's been more in the trenches on that um we do have a um

[0:38:31] Manager Emmings: a project charter for that program it's a phase one of the project and it's really the main thrust

[0:38:38] Manager Emmings: rest of it is to focus on how we might change land management in light of climate change.

[0:38:44] Manager Emmings: So particularly focused on our pilot program is to focus on one piece of land and try and see how

[0:38:51] Manager Emmings: we would integrate land management ethics with a changing climate into management of that parcel

[0:38:58] Manager Emmings: with a view towards perhaps expanding that to other ITC lands. I will lean into Catherine

[0:39:05] Manager Emmings: for a little bit of a project update um at this point yeah

[0:39:11] Voice 7: uh so i mean the climate change action

[0:39:14] Voice 7: project writ large as kate mentioned it's we divided it into multiple phases so it includes

[0:39:20] Voice 7: components of needing to understand what climate change is going to do on the land and and um big

[0:39:28] Voice 7: picture how things are going to change and how might that impact our strategic securement our

[0:39:35] Voice 7: strategic conservation planning and then it also is the on the ground what does this mean on this

[0:39:39] Voice 7: particular nature reserve and how we change what we're doing and so we decided to focus on that

[0:39:44] Voice 7: first component first so we picked a couple of pilot nature reserves to focus on and then last

[0:39:51] Voice 7: year despite maybe not despite even though the board did decide to suspend new conservation

[0:39:57] Voice 7: applications in the end the climate change project did not get a lot of attention and focus because

[0:40:03] Voice 7: because even the existing other things took a lot of energy.

[0:40:07] Voice 7: So what we have at the moment is in 2020,

[0:40:11] Voice 7: there was a, we commissioned Pena Sustainability

[0:40:15] Voice 7: to prepare a report on climate projections.

[0:40:19] Voice 7: So gathering what data are available

[0:40:21] Voice 7: for what climate change is going to mean

[0:40:23] Voice 7: in terms of weather and sea level rise

[0:40:25] Voice 7: and temperature and those components.

[0:40:28] Voice 7: And then at the moment,

[0:40:30] Voice 7: we've also got another contractor

[0:40:32] Voice 7: after working on gathering data so what we found is we were working towards trying to do this pilot

[0:40:37] Voice 7: analysis for an individual project is there are simultaneously an unbelievable number of data sets

[0:40:44] Voice 7: and very few that you can find that actually apply to our region and we were looking more

[0:40:50] Voice 7: specifically for those analyses that show for example what are the what's the future ecological

[0:40:56] Voice 7: ecological niche for western red cedar and so we've hired someone who's currently trying to

[0:41:01] Voice 7: help winnow that all out a data expert who's working with us to figure that out so then the

[0:41:06] Voice 7: next step was going to be taking those and doing that on the ground analyses and figuring out where

[0:41:10] Voice 7: it goes for me a big big big big piece of this climate project fundamental to it is reconciliation

[0:41:17] Voice 7: for a variety of reasons and so i think if the board does choose to defer the climate project

[0:41:24] Voice 7: I feel like we still have that ability to continue working on the relationships with nations that are going to give us a stronger and better climate action in the future anyway.

[0:41:39] Voice 7: That's my opinion.

[0:41:42] Voice 7: Did anyone have any?

[0:41:43] Voice 7: So we can send you the project charter and the report that we've got is just that climate projections.

[0:41:48] Voice 7: There isn't anything else that's an actual report at this point that we could send you to look at what we've been doing.

[0:41:54] Voice 7: Although we could probably pull together a summary of information based on the data work that's going right now and sort of a very brief update to the board for the May meeting, for example.

[0:42:08] Trustee Smith: Thanks so much, Catherine.

[0:42:11] Trustee Smith: Trustee Elliott, did that answer your questions?

[0:42:13] Trustee Smith: Yes.

[0:42:14] Trustee Elliott: Catherine, go send

[0:42:15] Trustee Smith: her the charter.

[0:42:17] Trustee Elliott: I believe Kate's already got that in our email box.

[0:42:20] Trustee Elliott: So thank you for that, Kate.

[0:42:22] Trustee Elliott: Thank you for that.

[0:42:23] Trustee Elliott: it's really hard to track projects when you actually don't know what they are um and i can

[0:42:27] Trustee Elliott: definitely appreciate the complexity of the kind of data that you need to collect so um just as

[0:42:34] Trustee Elliott: long as this doesn't fall entirely off because i think it's i think it's it may not be our niche

[0:42:41] Trustee Elliott: but ecosystem protection is evolving and the climate is the biggest driver of that so not

[0:42:51] Trustee Elliott: having any kind of lens on climate change and how that's impacting the lands that are being secured

[0:42:58] Trustee Elliott: is huge. Like, do you protect Western Red Cedar? Is it just a species that's dying out? This is

[0:43:05] Trustee Elliott: a significant, you know, and that comes down to the valuation of properties that are being donated.

[0:43:12] Trustee Elliott: decided what species are going to survive in the next 50 years. So anyway, I'm not by no means

[0:43:22] Trustee Elliott: versed in any of this. I just wanted to understand. So thank you for that.

[0:43:27] Trustee Smith: Okay, so yeah, and thank you for that. I'm concerned about all those same things that

[0:43:32] Trustee Smith: you are, Toby. So I do want a climate change plan. I just don't know how with limited staff

[0:43:38] Trustee Smith: have time to do everything um so can i make a suggestion then does somebody want to um make a

[0:43:45] Trustee Smith: suggestion for a motion uh maybe i'll ask first is there anybody who wants to keep the recommended

[0:43:52] Trustee Smith: motion as it is just if you want to keep it with no changes put

[0:43:58] Voice 3: your hand up so then if that's true

[0:44:00] Voice 3: then we won't have to make any changes okay so i i don't see any hands on that so

[0:44:08] Trustee Smith: is there anybody

[0:44:09] Trustee Smith: anybody who'd like to make a stab at some of the change at some change language for

[0:44:13] Trustee Smith: some changes.

[0:44:16] Manager Emmings: Excuse me, Chair, would it be helpful if I

[0:44:18] Manager Emmings: put the resolution up on the

[0:44:21] Manager Emmings: on? Is

[0:44:22] Voice 12: it not up there?

[0:44:24] Manager Emmings: Sorry, with with sort of a working change? I did. Yes. Yeah, a couple

[0:44:30] Manager Emmings: of the clauses around based on what you were saying originally, but I can move them back

[0:44:34] Manager Emmings: if need be. And

[0:44:35] Trustee Smith: then yeah, so yeah, work with the changes and see if we're happy. Hang on.

[0:44:43] Manager Emmings: So are you seeing the word document now? I am. Is

[0:44:47] Voice 3: anybody else? Yes, we're seeing it.

[0:44:50] Manager Emmings: I did move a couple of clauses based on what Chair Smith was saying, but I'm happy to move

[0:44:57] Manager Emmings: them back at the board's discretion. Sorry, is that

[0:45:01] Trustee Elliott: conservation, that last item not considered

[0:45:03] Trustee Elliott: a very high priority for conservation? Why was that put back into the focus?

[0:45:09] Manager Emmings: In here? Yeah.

[0:45:11] Manager Emmings: um i think that what i heard i'm i'm happy to put it back but i think what i heard is that the

[0:45:17] Manager Emmings: that chair smith was suggesting that we would not limit ourselves in terms of consideration

[0:45:24] Manager Emmings: of conservation proposal that

[0:45:26] Trustee Smith: isn't what i said actually okay so

[0:45:28] Trustee Smith: what i said was the point that

[0:45:32] Trustee Smith: i think is important wasn't there and what i wanted to see was that we would prioritize

[0:45:38] Trustee Smith: prioritize working on uh proposals for lands that are high priority so i didn't see anywhere

[0:45:47] Trustee Smith: a proposal to do that for conservation lands that are high okay and

[0:45:58] Voice 3: i just have a quick question

[0:46:00] Voice 3: when

[0:46:03] Trustee Elliott: there's a moment yeah um is there a conversation when somebody wants to donate a

[0:46:10] Trustee Elliott: property um if we see that oh this is too small or it's um doesn't have super high ecological values

[0:46:21] Trustee Elliott: um is that sort of passed on to the local conservancy and a conversation started you

[0:46:27] Trustee Elliott: know maybe itc isn't a fit but the local conservancy is uh

[0:46:33] Manager Emmings: yes so whenever we as staff

[0:46:36] Manager Emmings: so when people start to talk with us about conservation proposals if they tend if they're

[0:46:41] Manager Emmings: are small, or if they are, you know, maybe perhaps not the

[0:46:45] Manager Emmings: highest of conservation values as as we assess them against our

[0:46:48] Manager Emmings: regional conservation plan, then we do offer alternatives to

[0:46:53] Manager Emmings: people who come forward. What I can say is that I most of the

[0:46:57] Manager Emmings: local conservancies are also experiencing the demands that we

[0:47:01] Manager Emmings: are as well. So it's not always we can't always find a good fit

[0:47:05] Manager Emmings: for folks who want to do this.

[0:47:08] Trustee Smith: The other thing I'd like to say Kate, the other thing that I

[0:47:11] Trustee Smith: wanted to bump up was the outreach and communications that generate new conservation proposals

[0:47:16] Trustee Smith: i had wanted that as a priority item and because and then that actually does generate work on

[0:47:25] Trustee Smith: proposals for conservation i mean they're linked as soon as you do outreach and communication as

[0:47:31] Trustee Smith: you know that generates work for new proposals so i have wanted to move that up to the priority

[0:47:38] Trustee Smith: that's what I had said I'd like to see you put it there and then we'll see what

[0:47:42] Trustee Smith: other people think

[0:47:43] Voice 3: it says that one yeah so any comments on that as the list

[0:48:00] Trustee Smith: I

[0:48:03] Trustee Smith: don't see any hands

[0:48:04] Voice 12: yes I

[0:48:06] Trustee Smith: do see you yeah Susan your hands up

[0:48:12] Voice 12: did

[0:48:15] Trustee Smith: you want to

[0:48:15] Trustee Smith: speak oh you took your hand down okay did anybody else want to speak to that

[0:48:20] Voice 10: no sorry sorry i forgot to unmute myself i'm sorry okay on under the delay list um working on

[0:48:28] Voice 10: covenants for uh there was one more thing under the delay list and that was working on covenants

[0:48:36] Voice 10: for some of the um

[0:48:41] Manager Emmings: so that would kind of fall under a conservation lens we do we kind of blend

[0:48:46] Manager Emmings: blend the two in terms of our conservation proposals okay whether it's like

[0:48:50] Manager Emmings: how important

[0:48:52] Voice 10: it is how important is it to have the covenants placed on the nature reserves oh

[0:48:58] Manager Emmings: sorry um well

[0:49:01] Manager Emmings: there's a couple of reasons for pausing that at the moment um one is workload um and then the

[0:49:08] Manager Emmings: second is just being cognizant that anytime we put a conservation covenant on one of our lands

[0:49:13] Manager Emmings: it binds what we can do on those lands and the thought was to do a little bit more engagement

[0:49:19] Manager Emmings: with First Nations to make sure that we're not binding lands so much so that we are

[0:49:26] Manager Emmings: we're not taking into consideration things like you know use traditional uses of land or

[0:49:31] Manager Emmings: things like that so that's part of the rationale for pausing that and then the other piece of it

[0:49:37] Manager Emmings: is yes what it is is it's an additional layer of conservation on top of the the fact that we

[0:49:43] Manager Emmings: already have a nature reserve and so staff's feeling was that it's um you know the risk of

[0:49:48] Manager Emmings: anything happening to those lands is fairly low um but the board does have a policy that it will

[0:49:53] Manager Emmings: wherever practical consider putting conservation covenants on lands that it manages as nature

[0:49:59] Manager Emmings: reserves okay

[0:50:00] Voice 10: that's very helpful thank you kate

[0:50:02] Manager Emmings: okay

[0:50:04] Trustee Smith: so if there's no other comments i'm going to

[0:50:07] Trustee Smith: to suggest that we have a motion based on what we see. Oh, Trustee Scott has his hand up. Sorry,

[0:50:14] Trustee Smith: I didn't see you. Trustee Scott?

[0:50:17] Voice 2: Yes, thank you. I'm going to suggest taking on the last

[0:50:23] Voice 2: delay point, the eight hectares in size issue, because I think there can be pieces of land

[0:50:31] Voice 2: that are smaller than 20 acres or eight hectares. For example, a little piece of Gary Oak or a

[0:50:36] Voice 2: a little swamp somewhere that can be highly, highly productive conservation lands. So I just

[0:50:44] Voice 2: think it's limiting. I mean, I like the idea of, anyway, the rest of it, it's just not that

[0:50:50] Voice 2: limiting in size. I'd rather leave that up to you, the staff, to decide what fits in that criteria,

[0:50:57] Voice 2: not limited by a specific number. Thank you.

[0:51:02] Voice 3: Kate, your hand's up. Thanks, Trustee Scott.

[0:51:08] Trustee Smith: i just want to remind people although i think this is a really important discussion we are

[0:51:12] Trustee Smith: getting over time now but it doesn't matter we could still continue uh kate did you want to speak

[0:51:17] Trustee Smith: um i'll just say and

[0:51:19] Manager Emmings: then i'm happy to respond to trustee scott's comment there

[0:51:23] Manager Emmings: um i would caution against putting in the piece around outreach and communications that generate

[0:51:29] Manager Emmings: new proposals at this time just because we are getting a large number of them through the door

[0:51:33] Manager Emmings: without doing a lot of communications and outreach related to them related to generating business so

[0:51:40] Manager Emmings: to speak um and it is an added workload for um the communications specialist to do this and um

[0:51:47] Manager Emmings: and then will also cause our ecosystem protection specialist to filter through more potential

[0:51:54] Manager Emmings: applicants um it's not that it's not a laudable thing to do just that um that i think it might

[0:52:00] Manager Emmings: might actually exacerbate some of the issues that we're experiencing.

[0:52:04] Manager Emmings: And then just to respond to Trustee Scott's note around the limit in size.

[0:52:14] Manager Emmings: What we find is that from a conservation perspective when you're managing lands that are smaller

[0:52:22] Manager Emmings: in size, it's harder to manage like the edge effects associated with those and so you can

[0:52:29] Manager Emmings: can end up losing a lot of the conservation values.

[0:52:33] Manager Emmings: We do have, and perhaps this isn't clear in the resolution,

[0:52:38] Manager Emmings: but we would probably bring to the board

[0:52:40] Manager Emmings: anything that is small, but for example,

[0:52:42] Manager Emmings: borders on an existing protected area

[0:52:45] Manager Emmings: as something that would expand that protected area.

[0:52:47] Manager Emmings: And then the other piece that we would likely bring forward

[0:52:50] Manager Emmings: is if there was something really significant,

[0:52:52] Manager Emmings: like the last remaining population

[0:52:54] Manager Emmings: of Edith's checkerspot butterfly or something like that,

[0:52:58] Manager Emmings: that kind of thing would lightly filter up through staff

[0:53:01] Manager Emmings: to the board for consideration.

[0:53:03] Manager Emmings: But it is nice to be able to communicate

[0:53:05] Manager Emmings: sort of a generalized size that we are looking at

[0:53:09] Manager Emmings: to applicants and eight hectares is a nice size.

[0:53:13] Manager Emmings: The board in its policies has two hectares,

[0:53:16] Manager Emmings: which is five acres.

[0:53:17] Manager Emmings: And that we do find is a little bit small.

[0:53:20] Manager Emmings: And so eight hectares does kind of give us a nice filter

[0:53:23] Manager Emmings: when we're talking generally to to applicants but happy to um happy to adjust the wording

[0:53:32] Manager Emmings: to clarify that as as desired um

[0:53:35] Trustee Smith: i'd like to respond a bit to to trustee scott i think i

[0:53:39] Trustee Smith: remember this correctly but that was put in there by the previous board and it was actually in

[0:53:44] Trustee Smith: response to this type of discussion where the staff was really overloaded and they wanted to

[0:53:50] Trustee Smith: to find a way to be able to still entertain new proposals,

[0:53:56] Trustee Smith: but recognizing their workload.

[0:53:58] Trustee Smith: So the previous board decided it would be better not to ignore all lands

[0:54:04] Trustee Smith: under eight hectares, but considering the staff workload

[0:54:09] Trustee Smith: and the need to prioritize conservation,

[0:54:12] Trustee Smith: that we would prioritize areas bigger than eight hectares.

[0:54:16] Trustee Smith: And I think Kate has explained that.

[0:54:17] Trustee Smith: So that's where that came from.

[0:54:20] Trustee Smith: I think it was actually, am I correct?

[0:54:22] Trustee Smith: That was actually a board decision last year.

[0:54:27] Trustee Smith: Yes.

[0:54:27] Trustee Smith: It's always trying to manage workload and getting the best conservation outcome, which

[0:54:35] Trustee Smith: is very tricky.

[0:54:38] Trustee Smith: So the next thing was Kate had suggested moving outreach and communications because what I

[0:54:45] Trustee Smith: hear is that even without communications, we certainly get enough new proposals to keep

[0:54:51] Trustee Smith: us busy.

[0:54:51] Trustee Smith: so I put that there so I'm willing to put it into the deferred area unless anybody else objects to

[0:55:00] Voice 3: that I'm not seeing anyone's hands but maybe I'll wait a minute so with that moving that

[0:55:12] Trustee Smith: one to the

[0:55:13] Trustee Smith: it's not that we're not doing these things we're just deferring them and with that is there

[0:55:20] Trustee Smith: uh anybody who would like to move the motion that's on the table now oh trustee yates i see

[0:55:27] Trustee Smith: your hands up yeah

[0:55:29] Voice 10: just to follow up on what uh trustee scott mentioned about the eight hectare

[0:55:34] Voice 10: um minimum i'm assuming that if someone came to you with a gary oak meadow an intact gary oak

[0:55:43] Voice 10: a meadow that was less than eight hectares,

[0:55:48] Voice 10: you would

[0:55:48] Voice 3: still look at it?

[0:55:55] Voice 3: Kate?

[0:55:57] Voice 3: Sorry.

[0:55:58] Manager Emmings: Do

[0:55:58] Voice 3: you want to respond?

[0:55:58] Voice 3: Yeah,

[0:55:59] Manager Emmings: sorry, my apologies.

[0:56:01] Manager Emmings: Yes, certainly if it had good habitat characteristics

[0:56:05] Manager Emmings: associated with Gary Oak, yes, we would.

[0:56:08] Manager Emmings: That would filter up.

[0:56:10] Trustee Smith: Thanks.

[0:56:11] Trustee Smith: Trustee Scott, and then after Trustee Scott,

[0:56:14] Trustee Smith: I think I am gonna move for a motion

[0:56:16] Trustee Smith: because we're not gonna finish the meeting.

[0:56:18] Trustee Smith: Trustee Scott?

[0:56:20] Voice 2: Yes, I think this eight hectares in here will be seen by the islands, by Conservancy Hornby Island, for example, and it would be very discouraging for people who have that little piece of property you're talking about, this special, to see this here.

[0:56:37] Voice 2: and that will i think it'll discourage them from putting it forward to the point where you you can

[0:56:43] Voice 2: actually do what you suggest to get so i i just um it's not what

[0:56:50] Voice 3: i would prefer to see there thank

[0:56:52] Voice 3: you okay i i'm sure so well

[0:57:01] Trustee Smith: it's on the delayed work items anyways so do you want to are you

[0:57:07] Trustee Smith: saying that you want to it's not that it's not going to be worked on but do you want to move

[0:57:11] Trustee Smith: that up to working on proposals for conservation's lands that are high priority regardless of size

[0:57:18] Trustee Smith: is that what you're saying well

[0:57:20] Voice 2: either that or yes i mean i think that's what we're saying

[0:57:25] Voice 2: the conservation protection susan said everybody said it the protection of lands is the top

[0:57:32] Voice 2: priority it seems to me i mean i haven't been involved in this long enough to really understand

[0:57:37] Voice 2: down a lot the detail of a lot of these things but that seems to me like a very reasonable thing to

[0:57:41] Voice 2: say is the top priority of of the the conservancy board is to preserve and protect um private lands

[0:57:52] Voice 2: because that's mainly what we have and i can only reiterate so how you juggle these things around i

[0:58:00] Voice 2: mean i i think that might be the best way to do it uh chair as you mentioned so um the more i talk

[0:58:08] Voice 2: can

[0:58:08] Trustee Smith: i make it i'm

[0:58:09] Voice 2: going to confuse myself so can

[0:58:12] Trustee Smith: i make a suggestion that we have on there working

[0:58:14] Trustee Smith: on proposals for conservation lands that are a high priority that we just removed the delayed

[0:58:20] Trustee Smith: items that last point and we would then be leaving it to staff to to make some decision on which

[0:58:28] Trustee Smith: lands are high conservation priority sure

[0:58:31] Voice 2: i yep i can agree with that

[0:58:33] Trustee Smith: okay uh so i see oh trustee

[0:58:36] Trustee Smith: Scott so Kate did you still want to speak I

[0:58:40] Manager Emmings: guess the only thing I will add is that the board

[0:58:43] Manager Emmings: currently has a policy that says we don't look at anything under then under two hectares in size

[0:58:47] Manager Emmings: unless it has rare species of note is adjacent to existing protected areas or has other qualities

[0:58:55] Manager Emmings: that are very very important I can't remember exactly the policy but it's in the link in the

[0:58:59] Manager Emmings: the policy um that's as part of the um i believe yes part of the um agenda item and yes that's all

[0:59:10] Manager Emmings: i would

[0:59:10] Trustee Smith: caution us though i mean i'm willing to just i'm not sure that it adds anything because

[0:59:16] Trustee Smith: we already have we're working on a high priority areas i'm not and we have a policy about size

[0:59:21] Trustee Smith: in two hectares i just caution us a little bit although i'm willing to go with this that

[0:59:25] Trustee Smith: But we have to be careful about redoing decisions of previous boards.

[0:59:31] Trustee Smith: So this board will make decisions.

[0:59:33] Trustee Smith: We really don't want a new board to come in and make a new key to continually override the positions of previous boards.

[0:59:40] Trustee Smith: But in this case, I'm not sure that adds anything because we already have that we're working on high priority areas without the size.

[0:59:48] Voice 3: So

[0:59:49] Trustee Smith: personally, I'm willing to just delete that point because I'm not sure that it actually adds anything.

[0:59:56] Trustee Smith: And so with that, can we go to the next slide?

[1:00:00] Trustee Smith: And I see if anybody, oh, Susan, you wanted to speak again.

[1:00:03] Trustee Smith: And I will caution people that we're way over time on this item.

[1:00:06] Trustee Smith: So I just wanted people to

[1:00:07] Trustee Smith: be aware of that.

[1:00:07] Voice 10: I was just going to offer to make the motion.

[1:00:12] Voice 10: That's all.

[1:00:12] Voice 10: Okay, perfect, perfect.

[1:00:15] Voice 10: Thank you.

[1:00:17] Voice 10: Can you go ahead?

[1:00:20] Voice 10: Yes, thank you.

[1:00:22] Voice 10: I move that the Islands Trust, oh, sorry, I'm, yeah, I'm okay.

[1:00:27] Voice 10: Okay. I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm losing it on the screen

[1:00:36] Voice 10: here. Okay. Here we are. I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to focus

[1:00:44] Voice 10: work for the 2023-24 fiscal year on land management, land securement, and targeted

[1:00:53] Voice 10: outreach components of the Species at Risk program, First Nations engagement associated

[1:00:59] Voice 10: with development of the ITC plan, and administrative needs including policy updates,

[1:01:07] Voice 10: maintenance and updates to internal databases, land management and contact management,

[1:01:14] Voice 10: job description reviews for selected staff, review of the new website and technology used in the

[1:01:22] Voice 10: the field and working on proposals for conservation lands that are high priority and secondly delay

[1:01:31] Voice 10: the following work items until the 2024-25 fiscal year the climate change project revision of

[1:01:40] Voice 10: property management plans development of a reconciliation action plan monitoring of lands

[1:01:47] Voice 10: that are protected by other conservation agencies,

[1:01:50] Voice 10: that is parks and nature reserves,

[1:01:52] Voice 10: or that are considered at low risk

[1:01:54] Voice 10: of covenant breach or trespass,

[1:01:57] Voice 10: outreach and communications

[1:01:59] Voice 10: that generate new conservation proposals,

[1:02:02] Voice 10: and finally, placing of covenants

[1:02:04] Voice 10: on Islands Trust Conservancy nature reserves.

[1:02:09] Voice 3: Do I have a seconder?

[1:02:14] Voice 3: Nobody wants to second it?

[1:02:16] Voice 3: I'll second.

[1:02:17] Voice 3: Okay, thanks.

[1:02:18] Voice 12: Thanks, Toby.

[1:02:19] Voice 12: be all those in favor uh uh

[1:02:23] Voice 3: oops

[1:02:26] Voice 12: uh trustee scott are you in favor i don't see your hand

[1:02:31] Trustee Smith: well

[1:02:31] Voice 2: i'm waving it around but i'll do my okay

[1:02:34] Trustee Smith: thanks okay and i'm also in favor so that's

[1:02:37] Trustee Smith: passed unanimously thank you everybody for i think that was a very good discussion actually

[1:02:42] Trustee Smith: actually, on a

[1:02:42] Trustee Smith: pretty important topic. So thanks very much.

[1:02:46] Trustee Elliott: Chair Smith, just a quick

[1:02:48] Trustee Elliott: note, if you click on your view, it might be that you're seeing

[1:02:51] Trustee Elliott: speaker view and not side by side gallery view. So if you want to see everyone.

[1:02:56] Voice 2: No, I know.

[1:02:58] Trustee Smith: That's not my problem. My problem is I'm on an iPad. And

[1:03:01] Voice 2: so I can

[1:03:02] Trustee Smith: see either this

[1:03:04] Trustee Smith: screen that she's sharing, or the

[1:03:06] Trustee Smith: people but I can see hands up by looking at the participant list.

[1:03:09] Trustee Smith: okay so but i can see individual people at the bottom but not yeah thanks i know this technology

[1:03:17] Trustee Smith: really okay so the next agenda item um which uh is the referral um on keats island so i don't know

[1:03:28] Trustee Smith: who's going to speak to that is that um i'm going to pass this over to

[1:03:32] Manager Emmings: nula actually yes

[1:03:34] Voice 1: Thank you. So as per the ITC policy, which relates to ITC and the local planning service coordination, the planner managing this file has contacted ITC in regards to a referral of a development variance permit to construct a rock wall revetment within the setback to the natural boundary of the sea.

[1:03:57] Voice 1: um and part of the policy states that something will come to us if any decision affects a property

[1:04:03] Voice 1: adjacent to an island's trust-owned nature reserve and in this case sandy beach nature

[1:04:09] Voice 1: reserve on keats island is adjacent so um however even though it's adjacent the location of the rock

[1:04:15] Voice 1: wall is approximately 370 meters away from the property boundary of sandy beach nature reserve

[1:04:22] Voice 1: as the adjacent property is divided into many leaseholder lots.

[1:04:27] Voice 1: So the Keats Island Land Use By-law requires a 7.5-metre setback

[1:04:36] Voice 1: from the natural boundary of the sea,

[1:04:38] Voice 1: and this application would see the rock wall being built

[1:04:41] Voice 1: within zero metres of the natural boundary of the sea.

[1:04:45] Voice 1: And it's to protect an existing cabin,

[1:04:47] Voice 1: which has been built basically right at the boundary.

[1:04:53] Voice 1: So I see ITC staff looked over the professional reports submitted as part of the application.

[1:04:59] Voice 1: There was an engineering report which outlines that the proposed gently sloping revetment should effectively dissipate the wave energy without affecting the neighboring properties.

[1:05:13] Voice 1: properties, and the gentle transition to the foreshore revetment at each extent would prevent

[1:05:22] Voice 1: eddying effects from the revetment installation.

[1:05:27] Voice 1: So the design allows for areas of vegetation to grow and will use boulders of various sizes

[1:05:36] Voice 1: to minimize the reflection of the waves to adjacent areas, which is of concern when these

[1:05:43] Voice 1: hard structures are built. The environmental report written by an RP Bio states that

[1:05:50] Voice 1: based on their assessment the planned installation of the rock revetment can be constructed

[1:05:57] Voice 1: without further significant environmental impact but that in the event that the redevelopment

[1:06:11] Voice 1: is causing any concern and impacts to the marine foreshore or the intertidal habitats that the

[1:06:18] Voice 1: project should be halted and a qualified environmental professional consultant so as

[1:06:23] Voice 1: part of the plan it is important that the structure and its effects on the neighboring

[1:06:30] Voice 1: shoreline be monitored to ensure that no damage is done to the shoreline of sandy beach nature

[1:06:35] Voice 1: nature reserve. And do you have any questions about that? And then the recommendations are

[1:06:43] Voice 1: listed, as well as the implementation and communications and climate change repercussions

[1:06:52] Voice 1: and that kind of thing. But if you have any questions about that, please, please let me know.

[1:07:02] Voice 3: I don't see anybody's hands up.

[1:07:03] Trustee Smith: And just because of time, I do want to say one thing, I think this

[1:07:07] Trustee Smith: is an issue that's going to come up time and time again not just for the itc but for the islands

[1:07:11] Trustee Smith: trust and i would suggest that the islands trust council has to really think about um

[1:07:17] Trustee Smith: these abatement walls it's going to be on every island in many cases because there's a lot of

[1:07:24] Trustee Smith: buildings that are of course built before the the new setbacks and i'm sure this is going to have

[1:07:30] Trustee Smith: an impact on first nations too and how much um uh structure there is on the on the shoreline not

[1:07:38] Trustee Smith: just for this property when i look at this one this is a wall however you look at it if there's

[1:07:43] Trustee Smith: going to be fabric like construction fabric to hold everything in i mean it is definitely a wall

[1:07:49] Trustee Smith: it will look like a wall and there'll be many others like this so i would just in the

[1:07:54] Trustee Smith: recommendations suggest that we might raise this with um the trust council that this is a kind of

[1:08:01] Trustee Smith: upcoming recurring issue that's going to happen and they might want to have a policy on it or

[1:08:08] Trustee Smith: maybe not but they certainly should

[1:08:10] Voice 3: be aware of it any other discussion if

[1:08:16] Trustee Smith: there's any hands uh

[1:08:17] Trustee Smith: trustee scott and then trustee yates yes

[1:08:21] Voice 2: uh assuming the question here is not whether we

[1:08:26] Voice 2: approve walls or not it's only a question of how far the wall is away from the sandy beach right

[1:08:34] Voice 2: so if that's correct assumption i'd like to move that the islands trust conservancy board direct

[1:08:40] Voice 2: staff to draft a letter to the gambier island local trust committee regarding gm dvp 2022.4

[1:08:50] Voice 2: indicating that based on the information provided the board does not believe that the project will

[1:08:57] Voice 2: negatively impact the sandy beach nature reserve and find its interest to be unaffected by the

[1:09:04] Voice 2: application okay

[1:09:06] Voice 3: so you're moving the motion

[1:09:07] Trustee Smith: that you see in front of me so i'll just uh maybe i'll

[1:09:12] Trustee Smith: get a seconder and then we can have a discussion can i have a seconder first and then i know that

[1:09:16] Trustee Smith: Susan you want to speak to it I'll second

[1:09:18] Voice 10: I get a

[1:09:18] Trustee Smith: second okay so Susan seconds it now open it for

[1:09:21] Trustee Smith: discussion uh trustee Yates would you like to speak to it

[1:09:25] Voice 10: yes um I am concerned overall about

[1:09:28] Voice 10: you know as you just said this is going to be happening everywhere all the time especially

[1:09:33] Voice 10: with climate change so I did send I am working on a on something for the regional planning committee

[1:09:41] Voice 10: on shoreline zoning i'm hoping that will help the trust council overall so i'll just leave it at

[1:09:48] Voice 10: that okay

[1:09:50] Trustee Smith: thank you so i'm hearing you say that we don't need to uh make a comment to trust trust

[1:09:56] Trustee Smith: council because you're already working on that uh

[1:09:59] Voice 10: oh there's nothing directly oh we could certainly

[1:10:02] Voice 10: make a comment from the conservancy this is more like from my local trust committee point so yeah

[1:10:09] Voice 10: we could definitely comment to council on this uh so i

[1:10:13] Trustee Smith: think what i'll first do is we have a motion

[1:10:15] Trustee Smith: on the floor that seconded so this is specific to this and that motion is basically um that we're

[1:10:23] Trustee Smith: not impacted that the sandy beach nature reserve isn't impacted and we'll send a letter to that

[1:10:27] Trustee Smith: so do i have anybody objecting to that motion i'll do it that way nobody objects so the motions passed

[1:10:36] Trustee Smith: passed unanimously uh thank you so i think maybe i'll just put that to other business

[1:10:41] Trustee Smith: um if people don't mind if we have time to discuss

[1:10:44] Voice 3: maybe a note to the trust does that work kate yes

[1:10:52] Manager Emmings: that's fine with me okay

[1:10:54] Voice 3: so so

[1:10:55] Trustee Smith: that's great thanks everybody for making that one happen fast

[1:10:57] Trustee Smith: so the next one is a referral on a north pender bylaw related to sydney uh sydney island uh is

[1:11:07] Trustee Smith: Is that Kate? Are you going to speak to that?

[1:11:09] Manager Emmings: No, I'm going to let Gemma Green speak to this one.

[1:11:14] Trustee Smith: Gemma.

[1:11:15] Manager Emmings: Unless Gemma, actually, did you want to take this or shall I?

[1:11:18] Manager Emmings: I'm just trying to remember where we landed on this one.

[1:11:21] Voice 10: Kate, I thought you were going to take it, but I can definitely take it.

[1:11:25] Manager Emmings: Well, I actually, are we, am I on the right page here for a moment?

[1:11:30] Manager Emmings: It's

[1:11:30] Trustee Smith: page 57 in your, in the agenda.

[1:11:34] Trustee Smith: Yes,

[1:11:34] Manager Emmings: no, this is mine. Sorry, I had already advanced myself to Bowen. Sorry to give you a surprise there, Gemma.

[1:11:41] Voice 12: If only, yeah.

[1:11:46] Manager Emmings: Yes, so this is a referral. We've had a few referrals actually into this board meeting, and this is the second of the three.

[1:11:51] Manager Emmings: It's a referral from the North Pender Local Trust Committee regarding By-law 232 for Sydney Island.

[1:11:58] Manager Emmings: Essentially, the bylaw is to allow and also legalize trailers that are on properties that are zoned for residential use.

[1:12:11] Manager Emmings: And so staff, when we looked at the impacts of adding that and also there's some minor changes to what you're allowed to have in accessory buildings, including kitchens and things like that.

[1:12:23] Manager Emmings: um when staff looked at uh the covenants that we have on sydney island you'll notice they're

[1:12:29] Manager Emmings: all in green here and the zoning that they're changing is impacting all of these little

[1:12:35] Manager Emmings: residential lots that are largely along the shoreline we reviewed it in light of how the

[1:12:42] Manager Emmings: the additional trailer use might impact islands trust conservancy covenants and what was found

[1:12:49] Manager Emmings: is that where our covenants are existing all of the almost all the adjacent lands already have

[1:12:56] Manager Emmings: dwellings on them built and so the addition of the trailer is only allowed in the case where

[1:13:02] Manager Emmings: where there is no main dwelling in place it's meant to be a temporary use while owners are

[1:13:09] Manager Emmings: potentially building a house or building a building and so the only property that it doesn't

[1:13:15] Manager Emmings: actually already have a dwelling on it i believe is this one to the south of our sunrise covenant

[1:13:20] Manager Emmings: um and so staff felt that a there weren't a lot of properties where this would really impact

[1:13:27] Manager Emmings: itc covenants and b that um that the addition of a trailer as a temporary use um was not really a

[1:13:36] Manager Emmings: huge change to the adjacent land uses to covenants that we have there and so the recommendation um

[1:13:44] Manager Emmings: is that the board direct staff to indicate to the north pender local trust committee

[1:13:48] Manager Emmings: that its interests are unaffected by bylaw 232 and request the north pender local trust committee

[1:13:55] Manager Emmings: consider future regulations that increase buffers and other protection measures to ensure that

[1:14:00] Manager Emmings: conservation values on itc's sydney island covenants are maintained the last piece was

[1:14:06] Manager Emmings: added um following a conversation that staff had with the the planner for the island um and it was

[1:14:13] Manager Emmings: just to get us onto a list um for future land use bylaw and ocp amendments that might help to

[1:14:20] Manager Emmings: increase buffers associated with our conservation covenants and so that um staff felt that we could

[1:14:25] Manager Emmings: add that request without impacting the um the prior part of this resolution is which is to

[1:14:32] Manager Emmings: indicate that our interests are unaffected by this particular bylaw thanks

[1:14:37] Voice 12: a lot skate kate does

[1:14:39] Voice 12: anybody

[1:14:40] Voice 10: want to oh i see susan your hand is that um i would be happy to make the motion if that's

[1:14:47] Voice 10: okay um

[1:14:50] Trustee Smith: can i just check and see if anybody else wants to comment before you do that does anybody

[1:14:53] Trustee Smith: else want to have any questions before we do that i don't see them so trustee yates can you make the

[1:15:00] Trustee Smith: motion please yes

[1:15:02] Voice 10: and thank you kate for adding that that bit on the end there i think that's

[1:15:06] Voice 10: helpful so i move that the islands trust conservancy board direct staff to indicate to the

[1:15:12] Voice 10: north pender local trust committee that itc's interests are unaffected by bylaw 232 sydney

[1:15:20] Voice 10: island and request that the north pender island local trust committee consider future regulations

[1:15:26] Voice 10: that increase buffers and other protection measures

[1:15:29] Voice 10: to ensure that the conservation values

[1:15:32] Voice 10: on Islands Trust Conservancy's Sydney Island Covenants

[1:15:36] Voice 10: are maintained.

[1:15:40] Voice 10: So I see hands.

[1:15:41] Voice 10: Is that,

[1:15:41] Voice 3: Trustee Scott, are you seconding it?

[1:15:43] Voice 2: I am.

[1:15:45] Voice 2: I second.

[1:15:46] Voice 3: Seconded by Trustee Scott.

[1:15:47] Voice 12: Thank you very much.

[1:15:48] Voice 12: Any discussion?

[1:15:52] Voice 3: I don't see any hands.

[1:15:54] Voice 3: Can I see all those in favor?

[1:15:57] Voice 3: I

[1:16:03] Trustee Smith: see, and myself included.

[1:16:04] Trustee Smith: it so passed unanimously thanks everybody especially for doing that one so fast uh

[1:16:10] Trustee Smith: we're making up time which is great the next one's a big one though uh the next one is bowen island

[1:16:16] Trustee Smith: kate now now yes

[1:16:18] Manager Emmings: i am going to pass this over to new number three

[1:16:23] Manager Emmings: thank

[1:16:23] Voice 1: you very much um so itc has also been asked to provide comment on the referral

[1:16:29] Voice 1: to amend the land use bylaw and the official community plan of Bowen Island Municipality

[1:16:37] Voice 1: to create a new 97 hectare regional park at Cape Roger Curtis, Bowen Island.

[1:16:44] Voice 1: So the Bowen Island Municipality has received an application from Metro Vancouver

[1:16:49] Voice 1: to amend those two, the bylaw and the OCP,

[1:16:54] Voice 1: to create a regional park over 24 four-hectare lots that have been already set in motion to be

[1:17:03] Voice 1: developed, and they have some existing roads and infrastructure. So the proposed properties

[1:17:10] Voice 1: are in close proximity to ITC-owned Ferry Fan Nature Reserve on Bowen. The OCP amendment that

[1:17:20] Voice 1: would be required is to permit primary use of the land as a regional park for nature protection day

[1:17:26] Voice 1: use and overnight use to comprise of tent and group camping and then the zoning amendment is

[1:17:34] Voice 1: required to change the existing zoning which is rural residential to park zone a passive park

[1:17:40] Voice 1: with zone variation to permit the supervised overnight use so this this proposed new regional

[1:17:48] Voice 1: park and approximately 100 campsites that are proposed would draw new visitors to the park

[1:17:55] Voice 1: from outside Bowen Island and put them directly adjacent to Fairy Fen Nature Reserve. So Fairy Fen

[1:18:01] Voice 1: Nature Reserve includes a sensitive wetland which could be easily disturbed by an influx of public

[1:18:07] Voice 1: use and this could result in increased management costs for a number of things including invasive

[1:18:12] Voice 1: invasive species removal, human-caused fires, trail repair, vandalism repair, etc.

[1:18:19] Voice 1: We've had initial discussions with Metro Vancouver and they've stated their willingness

[1:18:24] Voice 1: to try and which have been placed in the resolution for this item. They will try to

[1:18:31] Voice 1: deter public use from the new regional park into Ferry Fen by not mentioning it on signage or maps.

[1:18:37] Voice 1: and they also plan to access the park via white sales drive and not via thompson road which would

[1:18:46] Voice 1: increase traffic directly by a bowen island conservancy property as well as fairy fen nature

[1:18:51] Voice 1: reserve and and the bowen island crown land so fairy fen is kind of in embedded in a larger track

[1:18:59] Voice 1: track of crown land. And so going and there's already been issues related to ATV use in that

[1:19:08] Voice 1: area because it's such a large track of crown land there. And then finally, to provide public

[1:19:14] Voice 1: education about the sensitivity of the area of the regional park and the surrounding areas to

[1:19:19] Voice 1: human disturbance, especially pertaining to wetlands. Okay, I'm happy to take any questions.

[1:19:27] Voice 3: thanks nula does anybody have any questions for nula nula thanks a lot for the additions

[1:19:39] Voice 3: in the

[1:19:39] Trustee Smith: recommendations because i think that really those will be very important to protecting um

[1:19:46] Trustee Smith: fairy finn so does anybody want to move the motion as is and then we can still have a discussion

[1:19:53] Trustee Smith: after it's seconded uh trustee yates yeah

[1:19:57] Voice 10: i move that the islands trust conservancy board direct

[1:20:03] Voice 10: staff to draft a letter to the Bowen Island Municipality regarding rezoning OCP 2023-0018

[1:20:12] Voice 10: indicating that the board recommends that if the application to amend the land use bylaw

[1:20:18] Voice 10: and official community plan goes forward to create a regional park over a series of properties

[1:20:24] Voice 10: at Cape Roger Curtis that no trails leading to or around Ferry Fan Nature Reserves are

[1:20:32] Voice 10: are advertised, placed on public maps,

[1:20:35] Voice 10: or on signage from the regional park.

[1:20:38] Voice 10: Access into the park is not routed via Thompson Road

[1:20:42] Voice 10: and does not impact Bowen Island Crown Land

[1:20:45] Voice 10: or the Ferry Fan Nature Reserve.

[1:20:47] Voice 10: And there is public education around the sensitivity

[1:20:52] Voice 10: of the area of the regional park and the surrounding areas

[1:20:56] Voice 10: to human disturbance, especially pertaining to wetlands.

[1:21:00] Voice 10: Do

[1:21:03] Voice 3: I have a seconder?

[1:21:08] Voice 3: I'll second.

[1:21:10] Voice 3: Okay. Trustee Scott seconds it.

[1:21:12] Trustee Smith: Now, is there any discussion, any further discussion before we vote?

[1:21:15] Trustee Smith: Trustee Yates.

[1:21:18] Voice 10: Just a question.

[1:21:19] Voice 10: Do we know whether dogs will be on leash in the new park?

[1:21:26] Voice 4: I am not certain of that yet.

[1:21:29] Voice 4: Kate, do you know?

[1:21:30] Voice 3: No.

[1:21:31] Voice 3: Is that something that would be useful to add to the motion?

[1:21:41] Trustee Smith: motion. I

[1:21:44] Voice 10: would certainly like to add it to the motion because I've sure seen what happens when

[1:21:48] Voice 10: they go off and yeah.

[1:21:52] Trustee Smith: So Susan do you have some words to add that to the motion? Maybe it's the

[1:21:58] Voice 10: fourth point.

[1:21:59] Voice 10: Yeah let's just make a fourth bullet that the ITC board request the Bowen

[1:22:11] Voice 10: iron municipality

[1:22:12] Voice 3: to include a dog's on leash directive for the public for this park so it would

[1:22:29] Voice 3: go at the

[1:22:30] Trustee Smith: end of that the there would be a fourth point and we're recommending

[1:22:35] Trustee Elliott: something about um a

[1:22:37] Trustee Elliott: park that's not under our jurisdiction right exactly yeah i

[1:22:42] Voice 2: think excuse me can i can i

[1:22:43] Voice 2: interrupt for a second i think yes all

[1:22:45] Voice 2: you need to say under the fourth bullet i agree on the

[1:22:48] Voice 2: fourth bullet is that there be no that dogs be kept on a leash because all the rest of what you

[1:22:54] Voice 2: said there is in the earlier the the lead into it

[1:22:56] Voice 3: susan yes

[1:22:58] Voice 3: yes i agree yeah so so can i get

[1:23:12] Voice 3: that

[1:23:12] Manager Emmings: clarification on where this should go uh

[1:23:17] Trustee Smith: it would go after the uh included dogs on leash

[1:23:20] Trustee Smith: directive um be there's public education around the sensitivity area after that point um that

[1:23:27] Trustee Smith: there be a dogs on leash directive for this part but

[1:23:34] Voice 3: yeah so

[1:23:43] Trustee Smith: to address toby's issue we're just

[1:23:45] Trustee Smith: asking for this we're not they

[1:23:48] Voice 10: don't have to listen to

[1:23:48] Trustee Smith: us yeah okay so with that amendment

[1:23:53] Trustee Smith: um i wonder if i can do this can we uh just say uh does someone want to um propose the

[1:24:01] Trustee Smith: recommendation with the amendment i think that's all you have to say i

[1:24:04] Voice 2: think we can just say it's

[1:24:05] Voice 2: a friendly amendment can't we i think everybody

[1:24:08] Voice 2: just go ahead with it yeah

[1:24:11] Trustee Smith: so um with that

[1:24:14] Trustee Smith: friendly amendment uh we should vote on this um all those in favor uh yeah i see everybody's in

[1:24:26] Trustee Smith: favor myself included so that's passed unanimously thanks very much and thanks for that addition

[1:24:31] Trustee Smith: of the dogs on leash so we've made up time we have we have a break at 11 30 it's 11 26

[1:24:39] Trustee Smith: um i don't know if that gives us enough time really to address the next item which is the

[1:24:44] Trustee Smith: annual report maybe we'll start with it and see if we can get through the next agenda item uh

[1:24:49] Trustee Smith: before the break okay do you think that can be done in uh five minutes

[1:24:54] Manager Emmings: yes i do think so

[1:24:56] Trustee Smith: okay great so the next agenda is the annual report uh 20 22 23 changes uh

[1:25:05] Manager Emmings: and i'm going to pass this

[1:25:05] Manager Emmings: one over to carmen smith who's our communications what

[1:25:09] Voice 2: page please 88 it's

[1:25:12] Manager Emmings: page 88 on the document

[1:25:13] Voice 8: yeah

[1:25:14] Voice 2: okay i see that though yes

[1:25:17] Voice 8: hello um so essentially um this is just a briefing of

[1:25:23] Voice 8: of information to let the board know what you can expect

[1:25:27] Voice 8: to see in the May board meeting.

[1:25:29] Voice 8: So essentially following the annual reports,

[1:25:36] Voice 8: I guess sequence that we took last year,

[1:25:39] Voice 8: which was a bit of a deviation where we worked

[1:25:41] Voice 8: with Islands Trust staff to incorporate our annual report

[1:25:47] Voice 8: and embed it in the middle of the annual report

[1:25:51] Voice 8: for the Islands Trust.

[1:25:52] Voice 8: Upon reflection, it didn't actually remove the need to create a standalone annual report for Islands Trust Conservancy.

[1:26:04] Voice 8: That standalone annual report is really important for fundraising purposes and our fundraising development specialist does utilize that frequently as a resource.

[1:26:13] Voice 8: So, essentially, what we're putting forward this year is that upon reflection, because we're still needing to produce our own annual report to support our fundraising, that we're going to, rather than embed Islands Trust Conservancy into the Islands Trust annual report structure, instead work, do the same work, essentially, but using our own processes.

[1:26:40] Voice 8: We're also looking to try and streamline that a bit because we now have an impact report,

[1:26:47] Voice 8: the first of which is currently on our website.

[1:26:51] Voice 8: And that as a tool supports storytelling in a way that an annual report perhaps doesn't

[1:27:01] Voice 8: need to.

[1:27:01] Voice 8: So we're looking to really streamline this year's annual report so that it still meets

[1:27:07] Voice 8: all of our requirements under the Islands Trust Act. And the requirements there under section 46

[1:27:14] Voice 8: essentially state that we have to have provide our audited balance sheet, statements of receipts and

[1:27:20] Voice 8: expenditures, provide a report of the operations and management of the assets for Islands Trust

[1:27:26] Voice 8: Conservancy, and then other particulars as required by the minister. And as far as we're

[1:27:32] Voice 8: concerned there aren't any other particulars that have been outlined by the minister at this point

[1:27:37] Voice 8: so this is really just to kind of provide the rationale behind what we're hoping to do this

[1:27:45] Voice 8: year and I'm happy to take some questions or you know address any concerns or clarify anything in

[1:27:52] Voice 8: relation to this.

[1:27:55] Voice 3: Thanks Carmen. Any questions to Carmen? I don't see any questions that's pretty

[1:28:05] Voice 3: pretty clear

[1:28:05] Trustee Smith: thanks a lot Carmen there's no decision on that so it is 11 29 on my calendar

[1:28:11] Trustee Smith: so my my uh so I think it's now time to take our 15 minute break so I will ask everyone to come

[1:28:18] Trustee Smith: back at 11 45 try not to be late turn off your videos and mute your um your system as you go

[1:28:27] Trustee Smith: away trustee Ellie did you have one question there no I

[1:28:30] Trustee Smith: was just saying bye I I put it back

[1:28:35] Trustee Smith: view of

[1:28:36] Voice 12: everybody. Sorry.

[1:28:38] Trustee Smith: Okay, thanks a lot. So see everybody in 15 minutes. And don't forget to

[1:28:42] Trustee Smith: turn off your video and mute your microphone. Thanks a lot. I think everybody's here. Thanks,

[1:28:51] Trustee Smith: the recording started. So I think we'll start the meeting again. We're making up time. And that's

[1:28:54] Trustee Smith: great. The next agenda item is the BC coastal marine strategy update. And I'm the one who

[1:29:01] Trustee Smith: who attended that meeting.

[1:29:02] Trustee Smith: So I'll be brief and you can ask me questions if you want.

[1:29:06] Trustee Smith: So I went to the consultation, which you all approved,

[1:29:09] Trustee Smith: in Vancouver for the new ministry is called Walrus.

[1:29:16] Trustee Smith: I never could figure out how to pronounce that.

[1:29:17] Trustee Smith: That's how they're calling themselves,

[1:29:19] Trustee Smith: the Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship.

[1:29:22] Trustee Smith: And they're developing two interlinked strategies.

[1:29:25] Trustee Smith: I didn't realize that until I went to the meeting.

[1:29:27] Trustee Smith: I went to the Coastal Marine Strategy Stakeholder Meeting.

[1:29:32] Trustee Smith: We had expected it to be a local trust, like a local government meeting, but it wasn't.

[1:29:38] Trustee Smith: It was an everybody meeting.

[1:29:40] Trustee Smith: And there were only 10 people there from various local governments.

[1:29:45] Trustee Smith: And it was very dominated by industry people.

[1:29:48] Trustee Smith: But there were also some environmental groups and other organizations there.

[1:29:53] Trustee Smith: and I'll just tell you they put out an intentions paper which is really worth reading

[1:29:58] Trustee Smith: and you can get it off the

[1:30:00] Trustee Smith: internet or I can send the link to you in our emails and they are open for they're looking for

[1:30:07] Trustee Smith: input on this intentions paper and the deadline is April 14th and I really think it affects the

[1:30:14] Trustee Smith: Islands Trust in general not just ITC and it would be wise for the Islands Trust to put some

[1:30:20] Trustee Smith: as a whole to put an input into there by April 14th. Before I get into what happened at that

[1:30:26] Trustee Smith: meeting, I'll make you aware that there also a water security strategy and fund was released

[1:30:33] Trustee Smith: while we were at that meeting and those people were there also and that strategy which has 100

[1:30:41] Trustee Smith: million dollars associated with it is very very relevant to the Islands Trust. They're dealing

[1:30:47] Trustee Smith: with groundwater, how to manage it, climate change particularly, saltwater intrusion, all these issues

[1:30:54] Trustee Smith: that we're all worried about in the trust so that also is out they aren't having a big

[1:31:00] Trustee Smith: consultation meeting but their intentions paper which seems to be the new way that the provincial

[1:31:07] Trustee Smith: government is talking about policy briefs i guess um is also out for public comment and i think the

[1:31:15] Trustee Smith: date on that is april 17th so um that's another thing that the trust as a whole might want to

[1:31:22] Trustee Smith: comment on and get our input when it comes to the coastal marine strategy they have six outcomes and

[1:31:30] Trustee Smith: they're all related to well they're related to the environment a healthy productive coast

[1:31:36] Trustee Smith: climate change is big in their resilience to climate change trusting relationships community

[1:31:43] Trustee Smith: well-being sustainable ocean economy economy and holistic learning and knowledge sharing

[1:31:49] Trustee Smith: and then there's um 30 different sort of actions or what they're calling intentions under that

[1:31:56] Trustee Smith: this intentions policy was developed in partnership with first nations and there's a lot to learn

[1:32:03] Trustee Smith: people ask them questions in the discussion about what they learned from developing something

[1:32:07] Trustee Smith: together like that and i think there's lessons for us in that as well which i'll get into in a minute

[1:32:12] Trustee Smith: um so the local government so it was very interactive there was lots of communication

[1:32:19] Trustee Smith: between the participants as well as um with the the people running the meeting it was a really

[1:32:26] Trustee Smith: great organized stakeholder meeting so kind of something to learn from and how they did that if

[1:32:30] Trustee Smith: anybody wants to talk about that later i can um the local government representatives raised issues

[1:32:37] Trustee Smith: issues that I've heard around the ITC table as well. So I might just tell you, they feel that

[1:32:42] Trustee Smith: they want to engage, they don't have the capacity, particularly around climate change,

[1:32:47] Trustee Smith: which relates to our previous discussion. They want to have climate change policies,

[1:32:51] Trustee Smith: but they don't have the capacity, the knowledge and the funds to gain that knowledge. So they

[1:32:56] Trustee Smith: were all concerned about that. So it was making me think that if this could possibly be organized,

[1:33:03] Trustee Smith: which i doubt in the time um that a submission from local governments would be useful actually

[1:33:09] Trustee Smith: but um the bc uh union uh what's the bc union of municipalities is that what they're called bc

[1:33:20] Trustee Smith: uh ubc ubcm yeah ubcm was was there so i don't know if they'll try and put in something for ubcm

[1:33:27] Trustee Smith: um governance on the coast was ranged was raised by many people it's very confusing they were

[1:33:35] Trustee Smith: asking the provincial government to take the lead on having a sort of one-stop uh oversight body for

[1:33:42] Trustee Smith: coastal management that people can go to so they know what's happening people are very worried

[1:33:46] Trustee Smith: about emergencies that we're still in the situation that we wouldn't know who was in charge

[1:33:51] Trustee Smith: and they're worried about disaster risk reduction pollution and regulation infringements and who's

[1:33:59] Trustee Smith: responsible so a lot of people raise that a lot of people raised the voices of communities that

[1:34:06] Trustee Smith: they're having stakeholder engagement at a very high level mostly with government officials or

[1:34:13] Trustee Smith: the heads of various industry organizations but where are the communities and there's no intention

[1:34:18] Trustee Smith: to go out to communities, except that they did mention that there's an intention for

[1:34:24] Trustee Smith: MLAs to go out to coastal communities and have town halls at that level on this strategy.

[1:34:32] Trustee Smith: Industry people raised some issues on this issue of the voice of communities.

[1:34:37] Trustee Smith: The seaweed farmers were there, and they said, ironically, they're an industry asking for

[1:34:42] Trustee Smith: regulations because they feel they don't have the trust of communities, not because they

[1:34:46] Trustee Smith: themselves have done anything bad or whatever, but because they're lumped in with all aquaculture

[1:34:55] Trustee Smith: and with the finfish, salmon, aquaculture industry, so people just generally don't trust them.

[1:35:02] Trustee Smith: And so they like to have some regulations rather than be self-regulated, so there'd be a higher

[1:35:06] Trustee Smith: level of trust. There was also raised, especially around data management, which we raised here,

[1:35:12] Trustee Smith: that there's a lot of work happening and that they should be careful to leverage off of that

[1:35:16] Trustee Smith: work not to recreate it particularly the ocean networks canada which is represents 40 million

[1:35:22] Trustee Smith: dollars in ocean data collection all open access and they were there and willing to be a part

[1:35:30] Trustee Smith: nature-based solutions were front and foremost in the discussion and in the intentions paper

[1:35:37] Trustee Smith: they're interested particularly around climate change adaptation and resilience to climate change

[1:35:42] Trustee Smith: and how can we use nature better.

[1:35:44] Trustee Smith: So they're thinking about restoration of eelgrass beds

[1:35:48] Trustee Smith: and salt marshes and that kind of thing

[1:35:50] Trustee Smith: that are nature-based solutions.

[1:35:55] Trustee Smith: There was

[1:35:56] Trustee Smith: very little around protection.

[1:35:57] Trustee Smith: In fact, it was barely in there,

[1:35:59] Trustee Smith: even though just a few weeks earlier,

[1:36:03] Trustee Smith: the federal government at the IMPACT 5 meeting

[1:36:06] Trustee Smith: had released a map on the intention

[1:36:09] Trustee Smith: to create marine protected areas,

[1:36:11] Trustee Smith: is many of which were on the bc coast and one of which is in georgia strait i did learn that

[1:36:16] Trustee Smith: the georgia strait one is theoretically at least a parks canada initiative there was a discussion on

[1:36:24] Trustee Smith: investment to support the policy so there's no funds at this point although the um i said there

[1:36:31] Trustee Smith: is a big fund that was announced along with the um the water security strategy uh there was a lot

[1:36:37] Trustee Smith: discussion about professional reliance people very uncomfortable with it and they raised that they

[1:36:42] Trustee Smith: heard that in many communities for a lot of reasons which I'm sure everybody here knows about

[1:36:49] Trustee Smith: so they have said they've already started to move away from that model certainly in the forest

[1:36:54] Trustee Smith: industry they're entirely moving away from it and moving into other areas and I'm presuming water

[1:37:01] Trustee Smith: but they didn't go into detail uh implementation was of concern um that um um yeah this is the

[1:37:13] Trustee Smith: concern that they have a lot of information already they never act on it so people are

[1:37:17] Trustee Smith: very cynical they don't expect government to do anything so when they get strong information that

[1:37:22] Trustee Smith: some regulation should happen they all say yes but nothing happens and so they were very um that

[1:37:28] Trustee Smith: That came out. Regenerative marine tourism, which you may all be aware of.

[1:37:33] Trustee Smith: I had never heard the term. And that's about tourism where the tourists actually leave the environment better than they left it.

[1:37:41] Trustee Smith: So they might as part of their part of their holiday clean up garbage or various things like that.

[1:37:48] Trustee Smith: And that is the buzzword around the tourist industry who were also there in large numbers.

[1:37:53] Trustee Smith: and there was also like an amazing amount of talk about docs which really surprised me about

[1:37:59] Trustee Smith: you know regulations around docs and should we have docs shouldn't we have docs i learned

[1:38:03] Trustee Smith: something there that i've heard in the island's trust so i thought it's interesting um so some

[1:38:10] Trustee Smith: people say that first nations because they did this with first nations don't want docs

[1:38:15] Trustee Smith: but in this paper they do want docs the problem with docs is that environment canada regulates

[1:38:23] Trustee Smith: pollution, particularly around shellfish harvesting. And generally, when a dock goes up,

[1:38:28] Trustee Smith: they assume there'll be pollution. And so they close the shellfish harvesting without actually

[1:38:34] Trustee Smith: monitoring to see if there's contamination. And so that was raised as an issue. So the First

[1:38:42] Trustee Smith: Nations don't want to have their shellfish harvesting stopped because of docks. Although

[1:38:49] Trustee Smith: although the reason relates to the incapacity of Environment Canada

[1:38:54] Trustee Smith: to actually monitor for pollution, so they just close things.

[1:38:58] Trustee Smith: And apparently there's cases on the other side of the border

[1:39:02] Trustee Smith: where the First Nations can harvest clams in a very similar situation

[1:39:08] Trustee Smith: to our side of the border because they are monitoring

[1:39:11] Trustee Smith: and finding out that there's not pollution.

[1:39:15] Trustee Smith: And then the other thing is there were questions asked

[1:39:17] Trustee Smith: were there any lessons learned about working with First Nations and one thing that they raised was

[1:39:23] Trustee Smith: that they didn't do it the right way they created an intentions document that was a partnership

[1:39:28] Trustee Smith: there were 30 authors half of them First Nations half of them from government and that didn't work

[1:39:34] Trustee Smith: because everybody had like a sort of issue to raise and it made it incredibly difficult to

[1:39:39] Trustee Smith: come up with one coherent document for the final strategy they're going to hire an independent

[1:39:43] Trustee Smith: dependent contractor who doesn't have any marriage to any particular political group and who can

[1:39:52] Trustee Smith: listen to everybody and come up with a more coherent document that's not so difficult.

[1:39:56] Trustee Smith: And that's all. Any questions?

[1:40:06] Voice 10: Trustee Yates. Yes, thank you, Risa. What a great report

[1:40:12] Voice 10: and some very interesting things that I would not have expected. So thank you. A question,

[1:40:19] Voice 10: you suggested that we might want to say something about the intention papers

[1:40:26] Voice 10: and are you thinking that the islands trust conservancy should perhaps make a resolution

[1:40:32] Voice 10: and the islands trust council make a separate resolution well

[1:40:40] Trustee Smith: i think it's an islands trust

[1:40:42] Trustee Smith: issue it covers every issue yeah i

[1:40:45] Trustee Smith: think we might the trust conservancy would be interested in the

[1:40:49] Trustee Smith: lack of conservation in there but um i think the islands trust itself could also put that in but i

[1:40:57] Trustee Smith: i don't know if we can have a resolution telling the islands trust to do something maybe um somebody

[1:41:06] Voice 10: could answer that well maybe if we had some very specific wording regarding a specific you know

[1:41:13] Voice 10: the the specific thing about those intention papers because i understood there was there's

[1:41:17] Voice 10: two different papers and they may

[1:41:20] Voice 10: yeah require two different motions but maybe we could get

[1:41:24] Voice 10: some advice from staff on that um

[1:41:30] Manager Emmings: through the chair with permission yes yeah yeah

[1:41:34] Manager Emmings: i can just say that you can you can't direct trust council's work of course but you can make

[1:41:40] Manager Emmings: a request to i think in this case you might want to start with executive committee um to do whatever

[1:41:47] Manager Emmings: it is you'd like to to further um although i'll lean into our executive committee representative

[1:41:52] Manager Emmings: for that i will also note that um trustees uh on trust council and also the two um

[1:42:00] Manager Emmings: itc uh appointed members have been invited to an information session that's a little bit shorter

[1:42:05] Manager Emmings: than what um vice chair smith attended um i think it's about a two hour session and i believe it's

[1:42:12] Manager Emmings: coming up next week um and so i just wanted to remind you that if you want more information you

[1:42:17] Manager Emmings: can also attend that and i believe there is um there will likely be something going um to

[1:42:24] Manager Emmings: executive and or to trust council to try and respond to the engagement um the deadline is

[1:42:30] Manager Emmings: the 14th as i understand it so i think there's there will need to be a bit of a a quick turnaround

[1:42:37] Manager Emmings: but you could make a request to executive around that

[1:42:40] Trustee Smith: there's two deadlines the 14th for the coastal

[1:42:43] Trustee Smith: strategy and the 17th for the um watershed security strategy yeah

[1:42:51] Manager Emmings: and that latter one i

[1:42:53] Manager Emmings: don't think we've received notice about so that's fairly new i believe well

[1:42:58] Trustee Smith: it's out there it's been

[1:42:58] Trustee Smith: out there for a while but it was released on while we were at the meeting cabinet released it it's a

[1:43:04] Trustee Smith: pretty high level because there's 100 million dollars associated with it so and also i do have

[1:43:09] Trustee Smith: the name of someone who because i i thought that we might be interested who's responsible for that

[1:43:15] Trustee Smith: policy in walrus and she's willing to meet with a group of island trust people um and i have her

[1:43:22] Trustee Smith: name and email if you want to uh follow up like the same kind of consultation they'll do with us

[1:43:29] Trustee Smith: for um for the coastal strategy she would do for the water security strategy watershed security

[1:43:35] Trustee Smith: So I would suggest a motion where we just say the ITC requests that the executive committee respond to or to the request for input into into both the the marine conservation strategy and the watershed security.

[1:44:04] Trustee Smith: I better get the name of it exactly. I think it's called the watershed security strategy. I think that's just a minute. Watershed security strategy and fund.

[1:44:17] Manager Emmings: I'm sorry, Chair Smith, I'm just wondering if you can reiterate those. I brought it up on the screen and I can type as you speak.

[1:44:26] Trustee Smith: I was going to suggest the Islands Trust

[1:44:28] Trustee Smith: Conservancy Board requests.

[1:44:32] Trustee Smith: just

[1:44:33] Trustee Elliott: seeing as i'm the liaison to executive committee um why don't i just bring this

[1:44:39] Trustee Elliott: to them which i i believe i already did

[1:44:42] Trustee Elliott: but um i don't know if we need to make a formal

[1:44:45] Trustee Elliott: resolution or not i'm just i was scanning the website as you were speaking and the survey looks

[1:44:53] Trustee Elliott: looks pretty like the the intention paper feedback that they're looking for for this

[1:44:59] Trustee Elliott: watershed security strategy and fund is is just a survey um no

[1:45:06] Trustee Smith: that can i interrupt yeah there's

[1:45:09] Trustee Smith: two ways you can input one is through the survey or the other is through actual comments on the

[1:45:15] Trustee Smith: intentions paper separately so you have two options or that's what they told us okay

[1:45:20] Trustee Elliott: and

[1:45:22] Trustee Elliott: And the second thing that I wanted to ask is, I wonder if the more appropriate place

[1:45:27] Trustee Elliott: would be to talk to William Shulbaugh, the freshwater person we have on staff, and see

[1:45:36] Trustee Elliott: if this fund could be tapped for the portal that we didn't get funded through Trust

[1:45:46] Trustee Elliott: Council for this budget.

[1:45:48] Trustee Elliott: I'm trying to see if this...

[1:45:50] Trustee Elliott: I know that the first issuance of this, I believe the first, there was money released

[1:45:58] Trustee Elliott: for this whole watershed security strategy in 2016.

[1:46:03] Trustee Elliott: And I think we got some of that money for the freshwater sustainability strategy that

[1:46:09] Trustee Elliott: was developed.

[1:46:11] Trustee Elliott: What we're lacking right now and what didn't get approved at Trust Council was $50,000

[1:46:16] Trustee Elliott: to create a portal so that the mapping that has been done can be made available

[1:46:24] Trustee Elliott: so that staff are not responding to individual requests from industry, government,

[1:46:32] Trustee Elliott: citizens about the mapping that actually exists. So creating this portal was the final stage for

[1:46:40] Trustee Elliott: groundwater and water sustainability, freshwater sustainability protection plan. So I'm wondering,

[1:46:45] Trustee Elliott: is there another action that we could request that's more targeted can we follow up on this fund

[1:46:53] Trustee Elliott: and see if we can get money to finish that portal uh

[1:47:00] Trustee Smith: yeah great idea trustee yates

[1:47:03] Trustee Smith: and

[1:47:04] Voice 10: then i see

[1:47:05] Trustee Smith: claire claire freighters also has her hand up oh good

[1:47:08] Voice 10: um yeah so based on what toby

[1:47:10] Voice 10: just said i'm thinking we have probably two separate motions here and the first one might

[1:47:16] Voice 10: just be a request via toby to take this to ec but the second one sounds more like well the other one

[1:47:23] Voice 10: might be a request too to go to to see what william shalbar freshwater specialist has to

[1:47:30] Voice 10: say about this but i'll leave it up to the rest of you and uh claire

[1:47:35] Voice 9: maybe you want to speak to this

[1:47:37] Voice 9: claire freder thank you i missed the beginning of the conversation but i was hearing a desire

[1:47:41] Voice 9: to seek funds for the freshwater portal is that the subject of the conversation the subject of

[1:47:46] Trustee Smith: of the conversation was a review that I did of my meeting that I went to, and I raised the

[1:47:52] Trustee Smith: watershed security strategy for that meeting. Okay, so

[1:47:56] Voice 9: with regard to the freshwater website,

[1:48:00] Voice 9: we're not calling a portal any longer, but in regards to getting information about the

[1:48:03] Voice 9: freshwater strategy on the website, the Healthy Watersheds Initiative is allowing us to spend

[1:48:08] Voice 9: some monies we had in reserve, I think $15,000 towards that initiative. So I think there is

[1:48:14] Voice 9: sufficient funding available through that um previously existing grant monies that were given

[1:48:19] Voice 9: um they allowed us to use that excess funding for that purpose so yeah um that i may be breaking

[1:48:27] Voice 9: the news now i think that will be reported to regional planning committee

[1:48:29] Trustee Elliott: that's great thank

[1:48:31] Trustee Elliott: you um yeah i was i was hearing fifty thousand dollars to create a special portal so if that

[1:48:36] Trustee Elliott: has changed then um that's good news because the the whole point is making that data available and

[1:48:42] Trustee Elliott: accessible to the public yes william doesn't have to answer individual requests okay great thank you

[1:48:48] Voice 9: it may be that more funds are needed and if so then the healthy watersheds initiative may be

[1:48:53] Voice 9: um something to look to but i think there's more there's still um i think we'll work with what

[1:48:57] Voice 9: we've got right now and then come back and advise um

[1:49:01] Trustee Smith: maybe what i could suggest is that

[1:49:03] Trustee Smith: it's not really doesn't require motion but i can give claire the name of this person who's in

[1:49:08] Trustee Smith: in charge of that and maybe the islands trust uh could have a meeting in the same way we have over

[1:49:15] Trustee Smith: the other strategy she's willing to do that and we could ask the specific question is what's the

[1:49:20] Trustee Smith: hundred million dollars for because uh it was very vague it was really truly just announced

[1:49:26] Trustee Smith: and it wasn't what the meeting was about but i sort of obviously picked up on it i don't think

[1:49:30] Trustee Smith: i was the only one actually um to see maybe maybe we could access some of that money um because it

[1:49:36] Trustee Smith: It does relate to climate change and drought and particularly saltwater intrusion.

[1:49:42] Trustee Smith: And the other thing that I should tell you is that quite impressively, these two groups developing these two separate strategies are in the same bigger group in Walrus.

[1:49:52] Trustee Smith: And they meet once a month to be sure they're on the same track because they see these strategies as linked.

[1:50:00] Trustee Smith: and believe it or not which i found remarkably encouraging they do understand that obviously

[1:50:06] Trustee Smith: when you get to the coast often things fall off the craft oh who's in charge you know is it land

[1:50:13] Trustee Smith: is it water and they're trying to bridge that gap which is remarkably forward thinking it probably

[1:50:19] Trustee Smith: doesn't sound that way to you but it does to me so um it could be a simple thing where we just

[1:50:25] Trustee Smith: request such a meeting and claire i could send you her email yeah

[1:50:29] Voice 9: so i see you've got a draft

[1:50:31] Voice 9: motion here i think there might be merit in the conservancy recommending to executive committee

[1:50:34] Voice 9: that they um get a presentation or something from the healthy watersheds initiative um i don't have

[1:50:39] Voice 9: a great deal of detail at this point so i think that would be beneficial well

[1:50:43] Trustee Smith: it's not the healthy

[1:50:44] Trustee Smith: watersheds initiative oh sorry wrong

[1:50:46] Trustee Smith: sorry yes well i know

[1:50:48] Trustee Smith: i and that's the thing there's so

[1:50:50] Trustee Smith: much happening i think they're linked yeah i'm pretty sure

[1:50:53] Trustee Smith: they are linked it's the watershed

[1:50:54] Trustee Elliott: it's

[1:50:54] Trustee Smith: security strategy and fund yeah that's

[1:50:57] Trustee Smith: right sorry that's

[1:50:57] Trustee Elliott: what i meant to

[1:50:58] Trustee Smith: say great

[1:50:59] Trustee Elliott: yeah i

[1:51:01] Trustee Elliott: agree yeah a formal request i think i think would be um helpful request

[1:51:08] Trustee Smith: executive committee

[1:51:09] Trustee Smith: request a brief yeah

[1:51:12] Trustee Elliott: briefing and provide input on behalf of the island's trust on the intentions

[1:51:20] Trustee Elliott: paper yes yeah

[1:51:22] Voice 9: okay

[1:51:23] Trustee Elliott: and

[1:51:25] Voice 9: i suggest are you thinking the intentions paper around the coastal

[1:51:28] Voice 9: and marine strategy no this is well i'm thinking both the water

[1:51:32] Trustee Elliott: security strategy and fund which

[1:51:34] Trustee Elliott: is open now until the 17th yeah for

[1:51:37] Trustee Elliott: feedback so i think as a government body we should

[1:51:42] Trustee Elliott: provide input on that it is a bit confusing it's just water water everywhere

[1:51:51] Trustee Smith: it's so confusing and people raise that at the meeting like there's so many initiatives

[1:51:55] Trustee Smith: and people are totally confused right so that feedback is needed by march 18th and 17th i think

[1:52:03] Trustee Smith: april 17th okay the feedback on the water security strategy is april 17th i'm pretty sure

[1:52:11] Trustee Smith: i'll just check my notes but i'm pretty sure uh april 17th yeah

[1:52:23] Voice 3: yeah

[1:52:24] Trustee Smith: found it now yeah

[1:52:26] Trustee Smith: Yeah. But do we want them to input into the coastal marine strategy as well?

[1:52:32] Voice 10: Yeah, that

[1:52:32] Voice 10: was my question.

[1:52:35] Trustee Smith: I think it's that we want the Island Trust Conservancy to request a briefing for the water and provide input on the water security strategy and at the end and the coastal marine strategy by April 14th.

[1:52:58] Trustee Elliott: Director Frater, from your perspective, is this going to be achievable?

[1:53:04] Voice 9: that's that's a question for um let's to discuss it executive i think it's fine for you to make

[1:53:08] Voice 9: the recommendation when we get to executive we'll have to talk about staff resources

[1:53:11] Voice 9: okay

[1:53:12] Trustee Elliott: yeah i would encourage everyone on the board to just fill out the survey as well

[1:53:19] Trustee Elliott: um because as citizens we might want to um provide input too yeah it's great uh trustee

[1:53:28] Trustee Elliott: scott has

[1:53:28] Trustee Smith: his hand up i

[1:53:31] Voice 2: know i'm gonna pull it down i just reread it and uh i thought it didn't

[1:53:36] Voice 2: need that anyway never mind okay so

[1:53:40] Trustee Smith: can i get somebody to make that motion i'll move the motion

[1:53:46] Voice 10: do you want me to read it out yes you have to now please okay i move that the islands trust

[1:53:52] Voice 10: conservancy board request that the executive committee request a briefing regarding the

[1:53:58] Voice 10: watershed security strategy and fund and provide input on the water security strategy by april

[1:54:06] Voice 10: 17 2023. And the coastal marine strategy by April 14 2023. And do

[1:54:16] Trustee Smith: I have a seconder?

[1:54:21] Voice 12: Trustee Scott, thank you. So all

[1:54:25] Trustee Smith: any other discussion before we close this?

[1:54:29] Trustee Smith: Don't see any other discussion. So all those in favor, put your hand up. One, two. Everybody's

[1:54:36] Trustee Smith: in favor passed unanimously. Okay, thanks, everybody. And thank you everybody for the

[1:54:41] Trustee Smith: the opportunity to go to the meeting, it was really fantastic. So I'll pass that. The next

[1:54:49] Trustee Smith: item is the Victoria Foundation.

[1:54:54] Manager Emmings: Actually, Chair, I believe we had one item from Trustee Scott.

[1:54:57] Manager Emmings: Oh, I'm

[1:54:59] Trustee Smith: sorry. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, Grant. The next item is the relationship

[1:55:03] Trustee Smith: between the Islands Trust Conservancy and the Islands local communities, local conservancies.

[1:55:10] Trustee Smith: so maybe uh scott you trustee scott you'd like to speak to that quickly because it's your it's your

[1:55:17] Trustee Smith: item yes

[1:55:20] Voice 2: thank you very much um i just find that um i'm just going to use hornby island as an

[1:55:26] Voice 2: example uh conservancy hornby island i doubt many people even on our board some of them do because

[1:55:34] Voice 2: of the nap tap program but i don't think all of them on the board and certainly very very few

[1:55:39] Voice 2: few people on the on the island that know that the uh the islands trust conservancy even exists

[1:55:48] Voice 2: and i think it could be like this whole herring fest thing we had uh that was very well respected

[1:55:54] Voice 2: a lot of people showed up and and by all accounts who everybody enjoyed it learned a lot of it got

[1:56:03] Voice 2: out to see the um the herring spawn and actually as i'm at noon today which was 13 minutes ago

[1:56:11] Voice 2: the herring spawn the herring um gill net opening just here dfo just opened it for fishing here

[1:56:20] Voice 2: and and that affects just about every island um around us so i've noticed that that the

[1:56:27] Voice 2: The Conservancy doesn't, this Conservancy doesn't really deal with marine issues very much.

[1:56:34] Voice 2: Now, I'm not suggesting we get into that because it's another monstrous area of concern.

[1:56:42] Voice 2: But I think it would be very valuable for the board members here and the staff to attend some of these events on all the different islands.

[1:56:53] Voice 2: because i don't know i mean i'm all i'm really curious about about what's going on on the other

[1:56:58] Voice 2: islands and which is so i think maybe the communication specialist it could start making

[1:57:06] Voice 2: some of those connections and how to make the connections and what to attend i don't think it

[1:57:10] Voice 2: would be onerous kate on staff to do that and i think your people being able to attend things

[1:57:16] Voice 2: like herring fest uh and we have forest fest going on in october we had the trees for tomorrow

[1:57:23] Voice 2: oral planting tree planting project that went over very well i think there's a lot of things going on

[1:57:28] Voice 2: the island that that by back and forth could be a benefit to the trust and to the uh conservancies

[1:57:36] Voice 2: on the island so i'll just leave it to that for now thank you

[1:57:41] Trustee Smith: trustee yates i see your hands up

[1:57:44] Trustee Smith: and then i'd like to speak to trustee yates

[1:57:47] Voice 10: yes thank you grant um yes well grant now that you

[1:57:51] Voice 10: you are on the Islands Trust Conservancy Board, this is part of your job. So I look forward to

[1:57:58] Voice 10: working with you and Hornby Conservancy and all the other conservancies that I happen to be a

[1:58:05] Voice 10: member of. And keep in mind that in order to send board members and staff to events like Herringfest,

[1:58:13] Voice 10: that costs a lot of money. I was able to stay with someone on Hornby for, you know, a few gifts.

[1:58:21] Voice 10: um but if I had had to pay for accommodation on Hornby Island it I wouldn't have been able to go

[1:58:28] Voice 10: so just keep that in mind um

[1:58:32] Trustee Smith: I also would like to comment I I think it probably depends on the

[1:58:36] Trustee Smith: conservancy but I know here on Galliano the Islands Trust Conservancy does work very well

[1:58:41] Trustee Smith: with the um sorry the Galliano Conservancy works well with the Islands Trust Conservancy

[1:58:46] Trustee Smith: we communicate with them you'll see that many other conservancies ask us for funds in our

[1:58:52] Trustee Smith: opportunities fund and we did just decide to defer the outreach from the staff in a previous agenda

[1:59:01] Trustee Smith: item to next year because of capacity so I would say like I think what you're raising is very

[1:59:10] Trustee Smith: important but I

[1:59:11] Trustee Smith: do think that's our job as board members and I think many of us do do that and we

[1:59:16] Trustee Smith: We could do a lot more of it.

[1:59:17] Trustee Smith: And, you know, even advertising, I might suggest, Trustee Scott, that one thing that could be

[1:59:23] Trustee Smith: done is that we could, you know, we could put things in, I'll just check with the staff

[1:59:28] Trustee Smith: on this, in the newsletter when things are upcoming.

[1:59:31] Trustee Smith: We could put it in the Heron newsletter so people are aware of what's happening on other

[1:59:35] Trustee Smith: islands.

[1:59:38] Trustee Smith: I don't know what else we could do, but maybe I'll just leave it to that and just check

[1:59:42] Trustee Smith: with staff whether it's impossible it's possible for us and we probably already do that to um

[1:59:47] Trustee Smith: advertise events in the heron

[1:59:51] Manager Emmings: um yeah i can comment on a couple of things that we do do

[1:59:55] Manager Emmings: um there's always room to do more um bearing in mind that we do

[2:00:00] Manager Emmings: trustee yates mentioned have capacity issues in terms of traveling and getting to all the

[2:00:04] Manager Emmings: wonderful things that are happening on throughout the islands trust area um we do have our heron

[2:00:10] Manager Emmings: newsletter but also our e-news and then our social media channels and we do um where local

[2:00:16] Manager Emmings: conservancies have events happening um that they share with us in advance we can often post things

[2:00:22] Manager Emmings: to those places to broadcast what else is going on around the islands.

[2:00:28] Manager Emmings: We do have an active land monitoring program.

[2:00:31] Manager Emmings: And when we do that, most of our covenants and lands are either co-held with local conservancies

[2:00:39] Manager Emmings: or we have management work that we do with local conservancies.

[2:00:43] Manager Emmings: And so every year when we go to visit properties, we do invite conservancy representatives to

[2:00:48] Manager Emmings: come out with us to look at the lands.

[2:00:50] Manager Emmings: And that is often a really nice time to be able to talk about projects that are going on and to have other conversations to liaise effectively.

[2:01:01] Manager Emmings: And then what else did I want to add here?

[2:01:07] Manager Emmings: I want to also emphasize that trustees are good emissaries of the Islands Trust Conservancy in your communities, as well as with other island communities.

[2:01:17] Manager Emmings: So yes, please do feel free to take forward any of our materials, and to suggest that that conservancies contact us if they have interest in working with us on anything.

[2:01:28] Manager Emmings: And I would also suggest that if you are in the loop with your local island conservancy that you urge their board members and their staff if they have staff to sign up for our newsletter on our website so that they do know what we're working on and can notice

[2:01:45] Manager Emmings: notice when we have things like opportunity fund intakes and other projects where there

[2:01:49] Manager Emmings: might be good synergies.

[2:01:50] Manager Emmings: We ourselves do sign up to all of the Island newsletters, so all of the Conservancy newsletters,

[2:01:58] Manager Emmings: we actually receive them and they get distributed amongst staff.

[2:02:01] Manager Emmings: I recognize we don't distribute them to the board members, but if that's of interest,

[2:02:05] Manager Emmings: that would be an easy way to keep you in the loop on what Island Conservancies are working

[2:02:09] Manager Emmings: on also.

[2:02:12] Trustee Smith: Thanks a lot, Kate.

[2:02:14] Trustee Smith: Kate, Trustee Yates, your hands up.

[2:02:16] Voice 10: Yes, thank you.

[2:02:18] Voice 10: So Grant, one of the things I asked the staff

[2:02:21] Voice 10: to help me out with is our Earth Day celebration

[2:02:24] Voice 10: on Gabriola, which is going to be the day

[2:02:27] Voice 10: before the International Earth Day

[2:02:29] Voice 10: so that we can include the school children.

[2:02:32] Voice 10: So ours is going to be on April 21st, Friday.

[2:02:35] Voice 10: I have a whole wonderful car full of banners

[2:02:39] Voice 10: and brochures and everything.

[2:02:40] Voice 10: thing and um we've been given a table at the earth day celebration and i i haven't really

[2:02:47] Voice 10: discussed this with with my lovely fellow trustee toby yet but we can either share the table or i

[2:02:54] Voice 10: can do the table if she's already booked for that day or however but we are going to have a good

[2:03:00] Voice 10: conservancy presence at the at our earth day celebration so perhaps you might be able to do

[2:03:06] Voice 10: that as well so

[2:03:09] Trustee Smith: i thank you so much i think what i'm going to do i'm just incredibly worried about

[2:03:12] Trustee Smith: time and our agenda so uh thanks very much for raising that um trustee scott i don't know if

[2:03:20] Trustee Smith: there's you might want to have the last word and i think we have some follow-ups that we can do

[2:03:24] Trustee Smith: in relation to that did you want to have the last word and then we'll move on to the next agenda

[2:03:29] Trustee Smith: item there's no decision to be made at this i don't think well

[2:03:32] Voice 2: i can only speak for one island

[2:03:34] Voice 2: and one on this issue because it's coming you know it's coming from me from from what's going

[2:03:40] Voice 2: on on wormby but what i would like to know is who can i link up with all the things everybody

[2:03:46] Voice 2: talked about who can i link up with on the staff of of the board to uh oh darn the phone's ringing

[2:03:56] Voice 2: in my head darn steer can you hold on a minute please how do i turn this thing off hold on a

[2:04:16] Voice 2: minute please this is ridiculous i know can you hear me um

[2:04:22] Voice 12: yes we can hear you yes

[2:04:24] Voice 2: okay well that

[2:04:25] Voice 2: that thing just ended so who who kate on your staff can i link conservancy hornby island up

[2:04:33] Voice 2: with to get all this information to get it going back and forth because it can't it's not going to

[2:04:37] Voice 2: go through me um

[2:04:39] Manager Emmings: um we have had recent conversations with your new um i think she's a director

[2:04:46] Manager Emmings: director yeah so we have been in touch with her and i'm sorry i'm forgetting her name right now

[2:04:53] Manager Emmings: um brie

[2:04:54] Voice 2: pearson thank

[2:04:55] Manager Emmings: you uh and then gemma does um do outreach to and she has got brie and i think

[2:05:02] Manager Emmings: another person through the conservancy um that she is notifying regarding our monitoring meetings so

[2:05:08] Manager Emmings: we we have been in conversation with those folks um in terms of um contact they're always welcome

[2:05:17] Manager Emmings: to send me an email if they have a question that they don't know where to direct it to um if it's

[2:05:22] Manager Emmings: that they're interested in brochures and communications materials corlin strachan our

[2:05:26] Manager Emmings: our admin assistant can help with that sort of um that sort of inquiry but yeah if it's something

[2:05:32] Manager Emmings: that they don't know where to direct it to i'm happy to field those and and help get them to

[2:05:36] Manager Emmings: the right person well

[2:05:38] Voice 12: i want okay thanks a lot i don't

[2:05:40] Voice 2: want to i'm sorry i want to leave this now

[2:05:42] Voice 2: because i know you want to get on with it but i need somebody from there to contact re and that's

[2:05:47] Voice 2: it that's all like

[2:05:48] Manager Emmings: i say we have been in touch with her and um that's good

[2:05:52] Manager Emmings: thanks okay thanks

[2:05:55] Trustee Smith: very much and thanks for raising that um grant so the next agenda item is um it's just correspondence

[2:06:03] Trustee Smith: there's no decisions and then comes updates for information so that's on the victoria foundation

[2:06:09] Trustee Smith: cirrus fund grant i don't know if there's really anything that needs to be said about it we all

[2:06:13] Trustee Smith: saw the letter it's fantastic that we've got some more funds from the susan bloom foundation

[2:06:17] Trustee Smith: um does anybody need any further updates on that beyond what's provided to us we've got the letter

[2:06:25] Trustee Smith: if i don't see anybody requesting any updates i think i'll just leave it at that unless someone

[2:06:31] Trustee Smith: from the staff wants to say something, but I think the letter is very good. Okay, so then we'll

[2:06:38] Trustee Smith: move on to the next updates, the public acquisition report, which I think that Kate's already got

[2:06:45] Trustee Smith: sharing. Kate, do you want to speak to that? Maybe I'll just ask, I don't know if we need to speak

[2:06:52] Trustee Smith: to all of these. It's pretty clear unless somebody has a particular update that they're interested in

[2:06:58] Trustee Smith: hearing about. Is there anything in this acquisitions report? It's pretty clear that

[2:07:06] Trustee Smith: anybody wants to address specifically. No, everybody feels pretty good about it. I think

[2:07:18] Trustee Smith: it's very well written by staff, everything. I love these actually, because they're very clear

[2:07:22] Trustee Smith: what's happening. And the latest update, I like that we have the whole timeline, etc.

[2:07:28] Trustee Smith: et cetera. So no comments on it. So I think I'll just leave it at that. Since, um, since there are

[2:07:36] Trustee Smith: no comments, there is a budget report. Uh, Kate, did you feel you needed to say something else?

[2:07:41] Trustee Smith: A couple

[2:07:44] Manager Emmings: of things related to the budget report. Yes. I

[2:07:47] Trustee Smith: was just going to move on to the budget.

[2:07:48] Trustee Smith: So the budget is on page, uh, one Oh one of our, uh, our package. So Kate, did you want to speak

[2:07:56] Trustee Smith: to the budget um

[2:07:57] Manager Emmings: only to say that

[2:07:58] Manager Emmings: um we are getting close to the end of our fiscal year

[2:08:01] Manager Emmings: so we're starting to wrap up all of our contracts and other expenditures right now we're tracking to

[2:08:07] Manager Emmings: be about 99 spent on our budget um and so that's that's pretty good nice not to be overspent we

[2:08:15] Manager Emmings: like to get as close as we can to that that mark um i did want to highlight um that we have been

[2:08:23] Manager Emmings: been receiving some donations of late, and we had some good donations come in towards the end of

[2:08:28] Manager Emmings: last year. And so you'll note that our opportunity fund, we've had about 85, just over $85,000 worth

[2:08:36] Manager Emmings: of donations come in primarily in the last three to four months. And then we've also got the Link

[2:08:43] Manager Emmings: Island Screech All project that the board accepted the donation for that. Just to let you know that

[2:08:49] Manager Emmings: Those donations have been coming in primarily as, you know, either bequests or we also had some good gifts of securities towards the end of the year.

[2:08:59] Manager Emmings: So that's been nice to see those bumps.

[2:09:02] Manager Emmings: And then the last thing I'll just say is as we begin to close out our books, we will be starting to move into our audit process.

[2:09:09] Manager Emmings: And so at the board's next meeting in May, if all goes well, we should be getting an audit report from the auditors.

[2:09:17] Manager Emmings: and you'll be able to see how all of this looks in terms of financial statements for the year-end

[2:09:22] Manager Emmings: wrap-up. I think that's all I have to say.

[2:09:26] Trustee Smith: Thanks Kate. Is there anybody want to say anything about

[2:09:29] Trustee Smith: the budget before we get into the audit process next? I don't see any hands up. Great summary.

[2:09:41] Trustee Smith: Thanks a lot Kate. So we're really catching up. I appreciate everybody's tolerance with me

[2:09:45] Trustee Smith: moving through these last items so now we're going to have some updates there's an executive

[2:09:51] Trustee Smith: committee update so this is these are just verbal updates uh toby um did you want to do the

[2:09:58] Trustee Smith: executive committee update

[2:09:59] Trustee Elliott: um the yeah thank you chair um the only update that i'd have and

[2:10:07] Trustee Elliott: forgive me there's been quite a few meetings our last executive committee was was mainly around

[2:10:14] Trustee Elliott: round approving the agenda for um trust council which just happened so i'll probably give more

[2:10:21] Trustee Elliott: of the information that uh will be relevant for the conservancy and the trust council update

[2:10:25] Trustee Elliott: um although one thing that did happen and it was a motion by both myself and trustee yates

[2:10:33] Trustee Elliott: um during trust council i'm still trying to figure out how things run so i i had brought

[2:10:41] Trustee Elliott: brought it up at at executive committee a while ago saying you know we're trying to trim our

[2:10:47] Trustee Elliott: budgets as much as we can where is the ask to the province to put in some money for these expanding

[2:10:54] Trustee Elliott: projects like reconciliation and as more conservation work is done um we really need

[2:11:01] Trustee Elliott: to have that conversation again with the province and so um i did manage to bring that up at trust

[2:11:07] Trustee Elliott: Council and so the motion ended up being if I can find it that we would have executive committee

[2:11:19] Trustee Elliott: work with staff on a strategic coordinated request to the province to look again at the

[2:11:29] Trustee Elliott: funding formula and so I know that's been an ongoing conversation but I just wanted to put

[2:11:35] Trustee Elliott: that at the front um because as we consider budgets and how to spend um our dear dollars and

[2:11:44] Trustee Elliott: and taxpayer monies in increasingly expanded areas uh the conservate conservancy is really

[2:11:52] Trustee Elliott: where um we think the province should direct its attention in um truly backing up the protect and

[2:12:00] Trustee Elliott: preserve mandate so that conversation is being advanced um there was i think it was unanimous

[2:12:07] Trustee Elliott: approval at trust council so um what we really need to do is a very strategic plan because there's

[2:12:15] Trustee Elliott: no good um coming to the province and saying we need more money everybody's going to do that um

[2:12:21] Trustee Elliott: what we need to do is say this is the areas that we're addressing um you know we're becoming we've

[2:12:29] Trustee Elliott: We've done the governance review.

[2:12:30] Trustee Elliott: We're working on our long-term strategies.

[2:12:33] Trustee Elliott: And so what I might be coming to the Conservancy for is what are the specific areas?

[2:12:42] Trustee Elliott: Can we come up with a case for what the province can legitimately see itself funding, let's

[2:12:52] Trustee Elliott: say, under DRIPA, so reconciliation activities?

[2:12:55] Trustee Elliott: So something that's very clear, that has boundaries, that isn't just we're asking for more

[2:12:59] Trustee Elliott: money because the work we do is valuable it's all valuable work right um so that's what i'll offer

[2:13:05] Trustee Elliott: from executive committee um i don't think there's really anything else and i'll report out on trust

[2:13:12] Trustee Elliott: council which was there's a lot that happened when we get to that you are muted uh chair smith

[2:13:26] Trustee Smith: did every anybody have any questions on that um on that report i don't see any i have one could

[2:13:34] Trustee Smith: Could you just give us a quick update on, there's like the policy document that's out, there's the governance document that's out.

[2:13:42] Trustee Smith: What's happening to all those?

[2:13:46] Trustee Smith: And I see your hand is up,

[2:13:47] Trustee Elliott: Susan.

[2:13:49] Trustee Elliott: Toby?

[2:13:50] Trustee Elliott: Did you want to dump in on answering that, Susan?

[2:13:54] Voice 10: Oh, I just wanted to

[2:13:55] Voice 10: comment that, yes.

[2:13:57] Voice 10: Yes, it's a very, very worthy request, and it does have to be tailored to some specific needs that the province understands relate directly to the provincial mandate.

[2:14:09] Voice 10: The provincial part of our object is to protect areas for the benefit, not just of the trust area, but for the whole province.

[2:14:18] Voice 10: And so we do need to be specific.

[2:14:20] Voice 10: We do need to focus on things like preserve, protect directly.

[2:14:24] Voice 10: reconciliation is a really good one and the province at this point their portion of grant

[2:14:31] Voice 10: to the trust is is now less than two percent of our budget that's pretty sad so thanks for

[2:14:39] Voice 10: bringing that up toby i

[2:14:42] Trustee Smith: just wonder if we need to have a little uh sort of committee of the

[2:14:47] Trustee Smith: the board that just does a little brainstorm on what that strategic ask would be i'll just put

[2:14:55] Trustee Smith: put that out there if that would be something that people would be interested in doing because

[2:14:58] Trustee Smith: Toby's they're gonna the executive's gonna ask us and we haven't really had a fulsome discussion on

[2:15:03] Trustee Smith: that or it could be the next board meeting which might be too late well

[2:15:07] Trustee Elliott: this isn't going to be a

[2:15:09] Trustee Elliott: rushed uh thing this um according to the CAO this has to be a very well thought out thing so it's

[2:15:16] Trustee Elliott: not like executive committee is asking for a meeting with a minister right now um and conversations

[2:15:21] Trustee Elliott: with the ministry on a staff-to-staff level, I understand, have been happening.

[2:15:25] Trustee Elliott: It's leadership needs to decide what are we specifically asking for and how.

[2:15:34] Trustee Elliott: So, Kate, you had your hand up there.

[2:15:39] Manager Emmings: Yes, only to say that one option might be for the board to consider this a topic

[2:15:44] Manager Emmings: for its liaison meeting with the executive committee, which happens in July.

[2:15:49] Manager Emmings: And we usually start to speak at a board level about that meeting at our meeting in May, where the board starts to craft the agenda and talk about what you'd like to put on that meeting agenda.

[2:16:03] Manager Emmings: So I'll just flag that as an opportunity if you wanted to liaise on that particular topic.

[2:16:12] Trustee Smith: I think that would be great, but I do think before we liaise on, we should have some ideas ourselves about what our strategic priorities would be.

[2:16:20] Trustee Smith: So that may be what I'll just suggest is that it be on the next board meeting agenda to have a fulsome discussion on what would be our priorities for a provincial ask.

[2:16:32] Trustee Smith: Oh, sorry, someone just walked into my office.

[2:16:35] Trustee Smith: See you later.

[2:16:36] Trustee Smith: I'm on a meeting.

[2:16:39] Trustee Smith: Till 2.30.

[2:16:40] Trustee Smith: Oh, no, actually lunch is at 1.

[2:16:43] Trustee Smith: Okay, thanks.

[2:16:46] Trustee Smith: It's my son.

[2:16:48] Trustee Smith: um okay so um so can i leave it at that and then i see that uh trustee scott has his hand up and

[2:16:55] Trustee Smith: i think oh trustee yates has put her hand down so uh trustee scott yes

[2:17:01] Voice 2: thanks i think i think

[2:17:02] Voice 2: it would be a good idea for toby and kate to maybe meet on this and just to discuss what

[2:17:10] Voice 2: that might look like i don't think it takes a lot of people toby's obviously on the executive and

[2:17:15] Voice 2: Kate obviously understands what the issues are. So I think if just the two of you could do that and bring something back to the next board meeting in preparation for May and July, I think that might be very useful to all of us. I'll just leave it at that.

[2:17:33] Voice 2: period of that okay

[2:17:35] Voice 12: thank you um any other comments okay

[2:17:43] Trustee Smith: so i think we're leaving that

[2:17:45] Trustee Smith: then i did ask two questions but i think i'll just leave them because i as i said i'm super

[2:17:50] Trustee Smith: worried about time and i can just send an email to um i hope that's okay with you um toby if i

[2:17:56] Trustee Smith: send you an email on those other questions so we don't spend more time on it now unless other

[2:17:59] Trustee Elliott: people

[2:18:00] Trustee Smith: were i'll

[2:18:01] Trustee Elliott: give a bit of an update from

[2:18:02] Trustee Elliott: trust council and that might be

[2:18:03] Trustee Elliott: perfect okay

[2:18:04] Trustee Smith: Okay, perfect. So the next, so anything else on that update from executive? No. Am I missing a

[2:18:13] Trustee Smith: hand? No. Okay. Now the next is the financial planning committee update. And I believe that's

[2:18:19] Trustee Smith: you, Trustee Yates.

[2:18:25] Voice 10: I'm on the financial planning committee, but I somehow completely missed

[2:18:31] Voice 10: not directive I am so sorry um but but but what I what I can tell you is that the financial

[2:18:40] Voice 10: planning committee did make some very clear recommendations to council as to what they had

[2:18:46] Voice 10: recommended to cut from the budget and council had a great discussion and we decided to put

[2:18:55] Voice 10: put one of those items back in the budget and that was to fund the next council meeting as

[2:19:03] Voice 10: an in-person meeting and we but council did go along with the recommendation from financial

[2:19:08] Voice 10: planning committee to cut the trust policy statement work by $30,000 for the coming budget

[2:19:17] Voice 10: term partly because we are lacking in staff capacity to work on that and partly because

[2:19:24] Voice 10: it gives us a little bit of breathing time to look carefully at what we want to happen next

[2:19:30] Voice 10: so that's probably all i can say on that but toby might have more

[2:19:36] Trustee Elliott: um don't yeah just an answer to

[2:19:40] Trustee Elliott: your question earlier chair smith about where the policy event i think you asked where the policy

[2:19:45] Trustee Elliott: amendment project was at yeah okay so the policy statement amendment project and if director

[2:19:52] Trustee Elliott: curator still on the line if you want an update i think it's it is useful to go over this very

[2:19:58] Trustee Elliott: briefly um because it's it's it's been a bit of a back and forth and but it does affect you know

[2:20:06] Trustee Elliott: both the conservancy and and um trust council so basically because uh key staff um had to step

[2:20:17] Trustee Elliott: away who've basically been stewarding the project and has all the institutional knowledge

[2:20:21] Trustee Elliott: I believe Director Marler is is has stepped up to that so but there's there's a bit of a debate

[2:20:30] Trustee Elliott: on programs committee about how to approach this in terms of getting feedback from communities and

[2:20:38] Trustee Elliott: so some of the programs committee are wanting to have a longer six month period where they

[2:20:47] Trustee Elliott: They personally, as trustees, carry the draft out to communities and get input and thinking that we'll have a better response than sort of the official referral process.

[2:20:59] Trustee Elliott: So the debate has been, do we do first reading on a draft and then take it out for consultation or do we do this sort of preliminary?

[2:21:06] Trustee Elliott: So, both of them seem to have ended up at a timeline, Director Frater, if you can correct me if I'm wrong, that might result in the policy statement being, the amendment being adopted really at the end of this current term, so 2028, 27.

[2:21:25] Trustee Elliott: And so I don't know if there's anything else you can add, everything seems to be in process in a very long timeline.

[2:21:34] Voice 9: Chair Smith, would you like me to supplement that?

[2:21:36] Trustee Elliott: Yes, please.

[2:21:37] Trustee Elliott: Okay,

[2:21:38] Voice 9: so yeah, so last week, Trust Council did adopt a project or endorse a project charter that essentially allows for the document to be considered by Trust Council in the next fiscal year, and then public engagement on a draft that Council would endorse would happen the following fiscal year.

[2:21:54] Voice 9: So this is a slow path, you know, for consideration, but we are aiming to have something adopted this term is the goal.

[2:22:04] Voice 9: The timeline that was presented to council, I did advise council it could be sped up through the holding of special council meetings rather than trying to consider the document in regular council meetings.

[2:22:14] Voice 9: And it will be up to Council whether they wish to re-refer it to the Conservancy Board or not.

[2:22:20] Voice 9: But again, there's some there's some distance from that because first reading is contemplated to be, you know,

[2:22:25] Voice 9: you know, over a year away, I would suggest, probably a year and a half away.

[2:22:33] Voice 3: Thank

[2:22:33] Trustee Smith: you. OK, any other, that's super helpful. Any

[2:22:37] Voice 12: other questions?

[2:22:41] Trustee Smith: No. See, I have to look at all these, whether there's hands up.

[2:22:44] Trustee Smith: No. So I think I'll just move on to the next item, which is the Trust Council update. So there's three people on Trust Council. So how about if we start with you, Toby, and then Susan and Grant can jump in.

[2:23:00] Trustee Smith: Sure.

[2:23:02] Trustee Elliott: And if I get anything wrong, please just jump right in. Let's make this a quick and collaborative process. So the budget was passed. That's good news. With a bit of the juggling of numbers that Trustee Yates referred to, the original proposed tax increase was going to be 1.75%.

[2:23:22] Trustee Elliott: They went up to 2.06% just because the draw from surplus for one element versus the need to increase property taxes for another element that swapped.

[2:23:37] Trustee Elliott: but by and large the work that financial planning committee had done which was it was really tough

[2:23:44] Trustee Elliott: those meetings were not easy uh for a new um set of trustees to come into and try to understand

[2:23:51] Trustee Elliott: and grapple with um but that largely had support so it's not a um what i think is going to be an

[2:24:01] Trustee Elliott: interesting conversation and i just offer it to keep in the back of your minds i don't have a lot

[2:24:06] Trustee Elliott: lot to do with this because I'm not on governance committee but there is a conversation about

[2:24:12] Trustee Elliott: creating a more corporate plan as following sort of business processes there's there's a

[2:24:22] Trustee Elliott: it's more along the line of instead of letting programs then drive the budget and we keep

[2:24:29] Trustee Elliott: cutting away budget but we try to keep all of our programs we have programs and planning matched

[2:24:38] Trustee Elliott: with budgeting functions and so starting more with i don't really understand corporate planning i'm

[2:24:44] Trustee Elliott: not in business but um there's a um is this there's some strong support among the governance

[2:24:52] Trustee Elliott: committee to revise how we do strategic planning in the long run and matching that up with sort of

[2:25:00] Trustee Elliott: a an overall corporate plan that's better understood and better integrated with the

[2:25:05] Trustee Elliott: budgeting process so we'll definitely have to keep our ears on the ground of how that evolves

[2:25:11] Trustee Elliott: i really don't quite understand it but um that's sort of where the governance committee is at is

[2:25:18] Trustee Elliott: is they really need to see a synergy between financial planning and our programs and everything

[2:25:25] Trustee Elliott: else. So the one other piece that was, I thought pretty relevant, there was a delegation. So every

[2:25:35] Trustee Elliott: Wednesday evening, now we have delegations by, you know, citizens who want to present. And there

[2:25:48] Trustee Elliott: The use of the Coastal Douglas for Ecosystem bioregional classification was being used to raise funds, basically saying that we were doing something wrong, raising money for conservancy, using a Coastal Douglas for Ecosystem that...

[2:26:12] Trustee Elliott: Anyway, so there's been a change.

[2:26:15] Trustee Elliott: And if you look on the website, Kate, I don't, and this is where it gets tricky because part of the conversation was in camera and part of it was not, and I can't entirely remember which resolution was made in camera.

[2:26:27] Trustee Elliott: So I don't want to overspeak, Trustee Yates, if you can recall, but there's a request that we look at the funding and donation buttons and the literature and education material around Coastal Douglas fir ecosystem and how that's being used to promote conservation.

[2:26:48] Trustee Elliott: conservation so there's a lot of debate on that and i frankly did not support this very react i

[2:27:00] Trustee Elliott: thought it was quite a reactive set of resolutions in response to a delegation that we don't actually

[2:27:06] Trustee Elliott: know where it's coming from is it grounded in science are we talking about one field of biology

[2:27:14] Trustee Elliott: battling another field of biology and they're both right you know this is um as someone said

[2:27:19] Trustee Elliott: this is an evolving um landscape and it's not an exact science we we use terms all the time that

[2:27:27] Trustee Elliott: get changed as we learn new contexts so it was a difficult conversation and um basically it's a

[2:27:33] Trustee Elliott: it's a real challenge to um the validity of some of um the science that we've been using and the

[2:27:45] Trustee Elliott: literature specifically in conservation materials so it's a difficult conversation i don't know if

[2:27:51] Trustee Elliott: anyone wants to jump in there thanks so

[2:27:54] Trustee Smith: much um so i will just check with the two other uh people

[2:27:59] Trustee Smith: who were at trust council to see if either of them they both have their hands up so maybe i'll start

[2:28:04] Trustee Smith: with you trustee scott first thank

[2:28:07] Voice 2: you toby i absolutely agree i'm a professional forester

[2:28:12] Voice 2: I've been this since 1974, so the CDF issue has been around a long time, and I absolutely, so much of what was put there was so questionable, and it was said in such a way that I was, yeah, I totally agree with you.

[2:28:31] Voice 2: It was, I felt very, it didn't go very well with me, and they gave me their documents.

[2:28:35] Voice 2: I've read them.

[2:28:36] Voice 2: So, yes, you're dead right on that.

[2:28:38] Voice 2: Thank you.

[2:28:40] Trustee Smith: Thanks

[2:28:41] Voice 3: a lot for that.

[2:28:41] Voice 3: Trustee Yates?

[2:28:50] Trustee Smith: Trustee Yates?

[2:28:51] Trustee Smith: you're muted you're muted trustee yates sorry sorry thank you

[2:28:56] Voice 10: um yeah right along with what

[2:28:58] Voice 10: trustee elliott trustee scott have just said i was shocked and appalled at how much attention

[2:29:06] Voice 10: we gave that delegation and

[2:29:09] Voice 3: i

[2:29:10] Voice 10: i was i was just i have a science background i used to work with

[2:29:15] Voice 10: Vladimir Krajina, who invented the biogeoclimatic zone map for British Columbia at UBC in the 1970s.

[2:29:23] Voice 10: Science is iterative. Things change all the time. And even if we don't have exactly the right

[2:29:31] Voice 10: borders on the coastal Douglas fir zones, that should not make us take down our donate buttons

[2:29:38] Voice 10: from the website as former trustee deborah ferens said to me after that meeting well every every uh

[2:29:46] Voice 10: you know charity out there on the on the internet would have to remove their donate buttons if one

[2:29:53] Voice 10: tiny little thing was not quite quite right it just got i didn't

[2:30:00] Voice 10: I didn't even know what to say afterwards except that I just thought we spent far too much time on

[2:30:06] Voice 10: that and we gave far too much credence for that to that delegation thanks

[2:30:12] Trustee Smith: so much trustee um Yates

[2:30:15] Trustee Smith: trustee Scott your hand is still up is that from before or did you

[2:30:18] Voice 2: just one minor addition I

[2:30:20] Voice 2: absolutely agree that we spent far far far too much I don't know why you know uh uh Peter

[2:30:28] Voice 2: Peter Lockham's usually really good at controlling that kind of thing, but he didn't in that case.

[2:30:33] Voice 2: Toby, maybe you could bring that up at Trust Council, just why that one delegation got so much time, which everybody in the room was glazed over.

[2:30:44] Voice 2: So anyway, yes, thanks for saying that, Susan.

[2:30:50] Voice 12: Thanks, everybody.

[2:30:52] Voice 12: Oh, sorry, yes.

[2:30:53] Trustee Elliott: I wonder if there's

[2:30:53] Trustee Elliott: two actions that, potential actions that come out of this.

[2:30:57] Trustee Elliott: So one problem that I see, and this is a systemic issue with Trust Council, I don't know if Conservancy can weigh in on this at all, but it's the reaction time to delegations that may or may not be supportable by data, or even if they're supportable by data, how relevant is it?

[2:31:19] Trustee Elliott: How much do we need to shift an entire, like we've now, the donate buttons are gone from our website. So we've just shifted an entire communication strategy based on one delegation. And so if you wanted to raise that as a point of concern, that the very sort of reactive nature of not considering taking the time, like we take time to consider everything else.

[2:31:44] Trustee Elliott: How long does it take for reports to come out and to be analyzed and for trustees to debate and then make a decision on?

[2:31:52] Trustee Elliott: And so in one meeting, we made a decision to remove donate buttons from the website and to review our literature on Coastal Douglas fir based on a citizen who presented something that may or may not be verifiable science.

[2:32:06] Trustee Elliott: So that you could raise as a concern because it really implicates the conservancy now.

[2:32:13] Trustee Elliott: now so that's the first point and then the second was there any follow-up action

[2:32:21] Trustee Elliott: um on studying the science on the coast the range and the range and scope of the coastal

[2:32:27] Trustee Elliott: douglas fir ecosystem like it were we was the conservancy tasked with any of that i'm

[2:32:33] Trustee Elliott: was really not quite sure how that question was left so i will

[2:32:40] Trustee Smith: ask uh staff if you know that

[2:32:42] Trustee Smith: we have any follow-up from that decision maybe claire you're aware of that or um

[2:32:49] Voice 9: so yes um we

[2:32:50] Voice 9: are undertaking a review it was already in the queue of things to do now that we have a new

[2:32:53] Voice 9: communications officer on the trust side um so that work is underway to review the language and

[2:32:58] Voice 9: update products as necessary where we identify that some language is incorrect or imprecise

[2:33:02] Voice 9: so that work is underway and was already underway okay

[2:33:08] Trustee Smith: so um trustee yates i see your hand is up

[2:33:11] Trustee Smith: Yes,

[2:33:14] Voice 10: and that begs another question as to how much happens from these delegations that causes a great deal of staff work afterwards, and what is the ratio to relevance of the delegation, truth of the delegation, and the time that we need to spend on following such things up.

[2:33:41] Voice 10: It's just something that I think we need to say to the executive committee, as Toby mentioned previously.

[2:33:53] Trustee Smith: So do we want to have just a, I don't know if it really requires a motion, but just a decision to communicate with the executive committee over our concerns about this?

[2:34:06] Trustee Smith: Maybe I'll ask Kate how we would do that.

[2:34:09] Trustee Smith: Does it have to be a motion to communicate with executive committee?

[2:34:14] Manager Emmings: I'll defer to Claire, but I think I would suggest a resolution from the board if you want to go. Claire, do you have thoughts about that?

[2:34:23] Voice 9: Yeah, I don't know what the reflection would be. I mean, we get feedback all the time from all directions.

[2:34:28] Voice 9: Delegations are only one way. And, you know, sometimes we'll get a website comment that triggers staff effort to correct something.

[2:34:34] Voice 9: So I'm curious. Yeah. So I'll stand by and see what your resolution might be for council.

[2:34:40] Voice 9: but I would just remind the board like you're working within yeah yeah I'll look forward to

[2:34:45] Voice 9: what you might recommend and then I would comment then at that time

[2:34:49] Trustee Smith: um I wonder Toby since you raised

[2:34:53] Trustee Smith: this possible issue should we do you have did you have a motion in mind yeah

[2:34:58] Trustee Elliott: I'm trying to

[2:34:59] Trustee Elliott: think about it but to raise the issue of um vetting dispositions and responding or the

[2:35:09] Trustee Elliott: the disposition sorry vetting of delegations and disposition of delegations at trust council

[2:35:17] Trustee Elliott: and i'm just trying to think of is there a lens that we could ask that would be applied is like

[2:35:27] Trustee Elliott: before a disposition is or a delegation is dealt with that the islands trust conservancy is

[2:35:37] Trustee Elliott: is consulted, that there's a little bit more time to give input on, I don't know, is that what?

[2:35:51] Trustee Smith: Can I make a suggestion for a motion, see if people are comfortable with this?

[2:35:56] Trustee Smith: Yeah, I would suggest we say ITC would like to raise concerns to the executive committee

[2:36:01] Trustee Smith: about decisions on conservation that affect our work, but which we have not had an opportunity

[2:36:08] Trustee Smith: to comment on can

[2:36:15] Manager Emmings: i just ask you to reiterate that i think i lost the okay

[2:36:19] Trustee Smith: itc would like to

[2:36:21] Trustee Smith: raise concerns to the executive committee about decisions on conservation that have an effect

[2:36:30] Trustee Smith: on our business but which we have not had an opportunity to comment on

[2:36:36] Trustee Smith: i

[2:36:43] Trustee Elliott: think you said work before and i oh yeah

[2:36:47] Trustee Smith: i did say work sorry i didn't say instead of business

[2:36:49] Trustee Smith: this yeah and

[2:36:52] Voice 10: just a friendly amendment we mean council decisions regarding council decisions yeah

[2:36:57] Trustee Smith: yes yeah and uh scott did you have a friendly amendment as well well

[2:37:05] Voice 2: initially i thought is

[2:37:08] Voice 2: this really this really is a trust council and the executive decision do we have do we really

[2:37:16] Voice 2: have to send something from here to there i mean it was raised quite actively at the trust council

[2:37:22] Voice 2: Mayor Mrakas, So I don't know, but I mean I like to think, then I heard this and it's it's more of the effect on this on the board staff, so what I thought yeah alright, like Okay, let me wait, let me wait till you get finished typing and I'll see what it says.

[2:37:51] Trustee Smith: Mayor Mrakas, there's the motion.

[2:37:53] Trustee Smith: I see there's some other hands too so can I let you think about that for a minute trustee Scott

[2:37:58] Trustee Smith: and I'll ask trustee Yates and then I'll come back to you trustee Yates yes

[2:38:04] Voice 10: I do support this

[2:38:05] Voice 10: motion but I have another entirely different suggestion with regard to what we do with

[2:38:10] Voice 10: delegation so I'll leave that for a minute okay

[2:38:13] Trustee Smith: so let's deal with this motion first and then

[2:38:15] Trustee Smith: there might be another one and trustee Elliott you also have your hand yeah

[2:38:18] Trustee Elliott: I was just going

[2:38:19] Trustee Elliott: going to suggest i think this works because it introduces what i was trying to get across is

[2:38:25] Trustee Elliott: what is what is the checks and balances and in responding to delegations so introducing the

[2:38:30] Trustee Elliott: idea of oh who's not at the table yes there's two board members uh who are trustees who are

[2:38:37] Trustee Elliott: board members but the conservancy as a whole does not get a chance to respond so i i think that

[2:38:42] Trustee Elliott: introduces sort of the the additional considerations other than just the trustees at the table thanks

[2:38:48] Trustee Elliott: Thanks.

[2:38:49] Trustee Smith: Okay, and I'll get back to Trustee Scott

[2:38:52] Trustee Smith: and then I'll ask somebody to move the motion.

[2:38:55] Trustee Smith: Trustee Scott.

[2:38:56] Voice 2: Yes, thank you, Toby.

[2:38:58] Voice 2: That was my insert after I had a chance to read it.

[2:39:02] Voice 2: I said, I think it should narrow it down

[2:39:06] Voice 2: to raised by delegations to trust council

[2:39:08] Voice 2: because the Conservancy have no control

[2:39:14] Voice 2: over that whatsoever and it can have a huge effect

[2:39:16] Voice 2: on the staff of the Conservancy, right?

[2:39:21] Voice 2: So, that have an effect on regarding, I think if it said regarding delegations to trust council.

[2:39:34] Voice 10: But this covers everything, Scott. I mean, Grant.

[2:39:37] Voice 5: Yes.

[2:39:39] Voice 2: Okay. Does it?

[2:39:40] Voice 10: Yeah.

[2:39:41] Voice 2: Is

[2:39:42] Voice 10: that what we're

[2:39:43] Voice 2: trying to say or are we trying to limit it to what the delegations, like this one particular one we're using, CDF as an example. I don't know, but if it's.

[2:39:53] Trustee Smith: I personally would prefer not to have that.

[2:39:56] Trustee Smith: Of course, they do ask us on most things that affect us,

[2:40:02] Trustee Smith: but they haven't asked us on delegations,

[2:40:04] Trustee Smith: but there could be other things.

[2:40:06] Trustee Smith: So I think it's just to alert them

[2:40:08] Trustee Smith: that we do work on conservation

[2:40:10] Trustee Smith: and their decisions affect us.

[2:40:12] Trustee Smith: And so it should be a bit more broad, in my opinion.

[2:40:16] Voice 3: Okay, Clara, what do you think?

[2:40:20] Voice 9: This is generally broad enough.

[2:40:22] Voice 9: I can't see a role within your scope of powers

[2:40:24] Voice 9: to influence trust council selection of delegations

[2:40:27] Voice 9: or something like that.

[2:40:28] Voice 9: So I think

[2:40:29] Voice 9: the more general one,

[2:40:29] Voice 9: if you're just wanting to flag to council

[2:40:31] Voice 9: your interest in being engaged as appropriate

[2:40:34] Voice 9: and possible on conservation decisions,

[2:40:36] Voice 9: I think that as it was previously drafted is likely fine.

[2:40:40] Voice 2: Okay, that's great.

[2:40:42] Voice 2: Yeah,

[2:40:42] Voice 9: so I guess I'm going to put it back the way it was.

[2:40:46] Trustee Smith: Yeah, and now I'll ask somebody to move the motion, please.

[2:40:50] Trustee Smith: Does someone want to move the motion?

[2:40:52] Trustee Smith: I'm happy to move the motion.

[2:40:56] Voice 10: Is that okay?

[2:40:58] Voice 10: Yes, please.

[2:40:59] Voice 10: That Islands Trust Conservancy Board raised concerns to Executive Committee regarding

[2:41:05] Voice 10: Trust Council decisions on conservation that have an effect on ITC work, about which ITC

[2:41:12] Voice 10: Board has not had an opportunity to comment.

[2:41:18] Trustee Smith: I have a seconder.

[2:41:19] Trustee Smith: I

[2:41:19] Voice 10: see, Trustee

[2:41:20] Trustee Smith: Scott, your hand is up.

[2:41:21] Trustee Smith: Did you want to second that?

[2:41:22] Voice 2: Yes, yes, I'll second it.

[2:41:24] Voice 2: i like i like that in second thought sober second thought as they say thank you

[2:41:29] Trustee Smith: okay uh can i have a

[2:41:31] Trustee Smith: uh hands in favor uh let's see what i've got here everybody's in favor myself included so the motion

[2:41:41] Trustee Smith: is passed thank you very much everybody now i know trustee yates you have another motion i just want

[2:41:47] Trustee Smith: to raise an issue it's one o'clock we're supposed to go for lunch now um i did want to make one

[2:41:53] Trustee Smith: One suggestion, and Trustee Yates, if you would be willing to come back after lunch

[2:41:58] Trustee Smith: to your motion, I noticed that there's members of the public here, and we do have public

[2:42:05] Trustee Smith: comments and delegations, so I wanted to just get to that item and give the public a chance

[2:42:10] Trustee Smith: to speak, should they want to.

[2:42:14] Trustee Smith: Is there anybody who would object to moving to that item, and then I'll come back after

[2:42:18] Trustee Smith: lunch, Trustee Yates, to your item?

[2:42:20] Voice 10: I don't have a motion.

[2:42:22] Voice 10: It's just a comment.

[2:42:24] Trustee Smith: Okay, so do you want to make the comment now then quickly, and then we'll move on?

[2:42:28] Voice 10: Sure, it's back to the delegations. I think one thing that we could suggest to EC, if it has not

[2:42:35] Voice 10: already been suggested, is that the time spent at the time that the delegation was given, the one

[2:42:41] Voice 10: we are talking about here, was just way, way, way too much. That same discussion, like sort of the

[2:42:50] Voice 10: rejoinder and then the backing and forthing with that delegate that discussion should have happened

[2:42:56] Voice 10: at the end of our council meeting when we deal with dispositions of delegations that's when that

[2:43:02] Voice 10: long discussion should have happened okay

[2:43:06] Trustee Smith: thank you very much i think i'm just going to cut it

[2:43:08] Trustee Smith: off because i'm i'm super worried about time but very interesting discussion so if people are

[2:43:14] Trustee Smith: comfortable the next item was a trustee roundtable i'll leave that to the end after lunch and just

[2:43:19] Trustee Smith: Just for politeness, I do know that we do have four people in the public here, and I would ask if any of them want to speak, and I would ask you if you do, could you please make your presentation in two minutes or less?

[2:43:35] Trustee Smith: And if you want to make a longer presentation, to contact the staff ahead of time, and we could put that on the agenda.

[2:43:43] Trustee Smith: So I see four people, someone named Christine. Christine, did you want to speak?

[2:43:52] Manager Emmings: I believe, Chair, we should be able to see, or at least our admin assistant, Coraline,

[2:43:57] Manager Emmings: should be able to see hands for each of those attendees.

[2:44:00] Trustee Smith: I don't see hands, so I can't.

[2:44:02] Manager Emmings: And if they are not able to do that for some reason, there is an email here to our general

[2:44:10] Manager Emmings: email that can be, and we can help to facilitate upgrading them to a panelist role.

[2:44:17] Trustee Smith: Okay.

[2:44:17] Trustee Smith: So if any of you want to speak, try to put your hands up.

[2:44:20] Trustee Smith: we'll see if we can see you and uh who who is that corlin looking at the can you see any hands

[2:44:28] Trustee Smith: corlin there are no hands up currently no hands up okay um so what i'll do that thank you very

[2:44:35] Trustee Smith: much for all of you who are attending and uh really pleased when the public comes to our

[2:44:40] Trustee Smith: meeting so uh and do want to hear from you or um you know if you want to make a presentation

[2:44:45] Trustee Smith: another meeting it would be great so i think i'll leave it at that if you did want to speak

[2:44:50] Trustee Smith: and we couldn't see your hands if you could send an email to staff do we have that email

[2:44:56] Trustee Smith: kate can you tell them what the email is or corlin yes

[2:44:59] Manager Emmings: it's itcmail at islandstrust.bc.ca

[2:45:03] Manager Emmings: and i think i am i yes i am still sharing so it's this uh on the screen hopefully everyone can see

[2:45:09] Manager Emmings: that okay

[2:45:13] Trustee Smith: so if you had wanted to speak and somehow we hadn't seen your um i see staff

[2:45:17] Trustee Smith: Staff Warren Dingman is on too now.

[2:45:19] Trustee Smith: And we couldn't see you, then send an email to that email

[2:45:23] Trustee Smith: and we'll pick it up after lunch.

[2:45:25] Trustee Smith: Thanks very much.

[2:45:26] Trustee Smith: Okay, thank you, everybody.

[2:45:28] Trustee Smith: And it's a half hour break for lunch.

[2:45:31] Trustee Smith: It's one o'clock.

[2:45:32] Trustee Smith: I can't believe we're actually catching up time-wise.

[2:45:35] Trustee Smith: Really appreciate everybody willing to get through the agenda.

[2:45:38] Trustee Smith: And if everybody can come back at one, it's one o'clock at 1.30.

[2:45:45] Trustee Smith: and we are a little bit behind but not too behind so we'll be able to catch up then and please

[2:45:52] Trustee Smith: don't forget to turn off your video and the mute before you leave okay so everybody will please

[2:46:00] Trustee Smith: come back at 1 30 thanks a lot um i okay so we'll start the meeting now they just started recording

[2:46:12] Trustee Smith: i did note in the chat that trustee yates wanted to speak on the last agenda item before we close

[2:46:18] Trustee Smith: it so trustee yates did you want to

[2:46:23] Trustee Smith: speak or is that still hold i

[2:46:24] Voice 10: was just going to follow up with

[2:46:26] Voice 10: um trustee elliott's report on council and of course it did focus mainly on the budget

[2:46:32] Voice 10: and i wanted to make just one comment um that if there is a drawback to the relatively low

[2:46:40] Voice 10: tax increase um that council approved and i do maintain that it was a relatively low tax increase

[2:46:48] Voice 10: because if you look at the forecast um for the five-year financial plan um it is there's

[2:46:58] Voice 10: forecasted a tax increase of 8.78 percent now i'm sure it will not end up being that much but

[2:47:06] Voice 10: that's what happens when when tax increases are artificially kept low by transferring funds from

[2:47:13] Voice 10: surplus sometimes more than one year in succession um and I and I always worry about that because it

[2:47:21] Voice 10: to me it means that you know long-term stewardship programs really important trust programs

[2:47:29] Voice 10: often get curtailed and then what happens is we end up passing that on to the next generation so

[2:47:35] Voice 10: that's all I wanted to say about the budget I mean I know most people are very pleased that

[2:47:40] Voice 10: that it's such a low tax increase.

[2:47:44] Voice 10: I am too, but it has its drawbacks.

[2:47:46] Voice 10: Thank you.

[2:47:48] Trustee Smith: Thank you so much for that.

[2:47:50] Trustee Smith: Okay, so I think I'll leave that agenda item now.

[2:47:53] Trustee Smith: Thanks very much.

[2:47:54] Trustee Smith: Lots of food for thought.

[2:47:55] Trustee Smith: So the next agenda item was the trustee round table,

[2:47:59] Trustee Smith: time permitting.

[2:48:01] Trustee Smith: There isn't actually time permitting

[2:48:03] Trustee Smith: unless somebody has a really pressing desire

[2:48:07] Trustee Smith: to do an update.

[2:48:08] Trustee Smith: So is there anybody, any of the trustees

[2:48:11] Trustee Smith: who have a pressing desire to do a roundtable

[2:48:15] Trustee Smith: or just their own update.

[2:48:20] Trustee Smith: And I don't see any hands, so I think I'll just move on.

[2:48:24] Trustee Smith: We already did the public comments and delegations,

[2:48:27] Trustee Smith: although I will ask Kate if there was anybody

[2:48:30] Trustee Smith: who had wanted to speak who we weren't able to see their hands.

[2:48:39] Manager Emmings: No, we haven't seen any requests,

[2:48:42] Manager Emmings: and there's nothing through the ITC mail email account either.

[2:48:47] Trustee Smith: Okay, fantastic.

[2:48:48] Trustee Smith: And I just do want to thank the public who are attending again,

[2:48:52] Trustee Smith: because we're always really appreciative people to listen in on our meetings

[2:48:55] Trustee Smith: and provide us comments if they feel they need to.

[2:48:59] Trustee Smith: So the next item is new business.

[2:49:01] Trustee Smith: Was there any new business anybody wanted to raise?

[2:49:04] Trustee Smith: I don't see any hands.

[2:49:10] Trustee Smith: If I'm going too fast, just let me know and I'll slow down.

[2:49:13] Trustee Smith: i'm just trying to get this finished but i do think it's important to talk okay so i don't see

[2:49:19] Trustee Smith: any hands for new business um the next agenda item is the next meeting which is may the 30th

[2:49:25] Trustee Smith: 2030 so i don't think there's any comment but except for kate okay sorry

[2:49:31] Manager Emmings: i just realized that

[2:49:32] Manager Emmings: we do have a member of the public in the attendees who just raised her hand so i

[2:49:38] Trustee Smith: don't know if you

[2:49:38] Trustee Smith: I will go back

[2:49:39] Trustee Smith: so let's just give us one minute uh to um just finish that item so the next meeting

[2:49:47] Trustee Smith: is May the 30th there's no decisions or anything just so that everybody's aware and now we'll just

[2:49:53] Trustee Smith: go back to uh the public member who wants to speak I don't know who that is so maybe you'll

[2:49:58] Trustee Smith: introduce yourself and um it's Christine someone named Christine

[2:50:03] Manager Emmings: that's right and Coralyn just to

[2:50:06] Manager Emmings: confirm have you been able to say upgrade Christine to a speaking role Christine

[2:50:18] Trustee Smith: I see

[2:50:19] Trustee Smith: you're on mute so I wonder if you unmuted yourself if you'd be able to speak oh

[2:50:25] Manager Emmings: there we go I think

[2:50:26] Manager Emmings: she's been upgraded to a panelist role okay

[2:50:30] Trustee Smith: so Christine I still see that you're on mute and

[2:50:34] Trustee Smith: your video is on mute so you can at least unmute yourself and if you want us to see you also make

[2:50:43] Trustee Smith: make yourself visible.

[2:50:45] Voice 12: Christine, there you are. Hi. You're still on mute. You're still on mute.

[2:50:57] Voice 12: You're on mute. I

[2:51:01] Manager Emmings: think she's trying to unmute herself. But Coraline,

[2:51:04] Voice 12: I might ask,

[2:51:04] Voice 12: are

[2:51:04] Manager Emmings: you able to do that on Christine's behalf as the meeting administrator?

[2:51:12] Voice 4: I've asked her to unmute, but I don't have the ability to actually unmute her.

[2:51:17] Manager Emmings: Thank you.

[2:51:23] Trustee Smith: Take your time, Christine. I'm sure you can find it.

[2:51:26] Voice 2: there should be it's right beside the video right beside the video button there

[2:51:31] Voice 2: is the mute button

[2:51:33] Trustee Smith: grant everybody's computer is a little different so it doesn't always look

[2:51:38] Trustee Smith: the same yeah

[2:51:39] Voice 3: it's true

[2:51:40] Manager Emmings: and sometimes if you

[2:51:45] Manager Emmings: ask her again to unmute it might pop up on her screen

[2:51:48] Manager Emmings: once more yeah

[2:51:50] Voice 12: you still can't see an unmute button um you

[2:51:58] Manager Emmings: found it we're going to do it in

[2:52:01] Manager Emmings: mime oh

[2:52:04] Voice 12: i'm so sorry uh how can we unmute her it's

[2:52:14] Trustee Smith: not working christine to host and panelists it's

[2:52:16] Trustee Smith: not working uh can

[2:52:19] Voice 2: you give her a phone number she can phone in yes

[2:52:23] Manager Emmings: we actually can do that

[2:52:25] Trustee Smith: yeah uh are you seeing that christine she's asking she sent an email um

[2:52:39] Voice 5: Oh,

[2:52:39] Voice 3: there she is.

[2:52:42] Trustee Smith: Maybe

[2:52:42] Voice 3: in the email, Kate,

[2:52:44] Trustee Smith: you could say what she wants to say.

[2:52:47] Trustee Smith: Do you see the email?

[2:52:48] Manager Emmings: No, I'm actually not seeing an email in the ITC mail.

[2:52:51] Manager Emmings: So I'm just going to plug it in again, Christine, so you can see it.

[2:53:00] Manager Emmings: That's the email to send to.

[2:53:07] Manager Emmings: And then you can also type it in the chat if that's easier.

[2:53:20] Trustee Smith: She's going to resend and go off camera.

[2:53:22] Trustee Smith: Okay.

[2:53:23] Trustee Smith: Okay.

[2:53:36] Voice 12: So unfortunate.

[2:53:39] Voice 12: Christine,

[2:53:49] Trustee Smith: can you, she's going to resend the email, I guess.

[2:53:52] Trustee Smith: Did you see the email?

[2:53:53] Manager Emmings: I have not.

[2:53:56] Manager Emmings: Coraline, the only thought I have is maybe I'm getting a delay on my internet

[2:54:00] Manager Emmings: and it could be coming through the office quicker,

[2:54:03] Manager Emmings: but I'm not seeing anything in the ITC mail inbox.

[2:54:07] Voice 4: I don't see anything there either.

[2:54:10] Trustee Smith: Christine, is it possible for you to chat, put something in the chat?

[2:54:41] Trustee Smith: Well, I'm actually, as the chair at a, I don't know what to do.

[2:54:45] Trustee Smith: I really would like to hear, Christine, please move on.

[2:54:48] Trustee Smith: So she's asking us to move on.

[2:54:50] Trustee Smith: But unfortunately, Christine, now that we're going to be closing the meeting,

[2:54:54] Trustee Smith: so moving on means closing the meeting, it's not pressing.

[2:54:58] Trustee Smith: So what I'll suggest, Christine, is that you do try and send an email

[2:55:02] Trustee Smith: about your concerns or whatever you wanted to say,

[2:55:05] Trustee Smith: and we will be sure that all of the board sees it.

[2:55:09] Trustee Smith: Kate can you make that happen if she sends an email that certainly

[2:55:14] Manager Emmings: I've also

[2:55:15] Manager Emmings: just our phone

[2:55:16] Manager Emmings: number Christine is 250-405-5186 if you want if you're having problems getting a message to us

[2:55:23] Manager Emmings: you can always give us a call as well okay

[2:55:28] Trustee Smith: thanks very much and thank you very much Christine for

[2:55:31] Trustee Smith: trying to speak to us it wasn't successful so the next agenda item is to close the meeting

[2:55:38] Trustee Smith: So I need a motion to close the motion is written there I don't know if Kate you want to put that motion up. Does anybody want to move that motion.

[2:55:49] Manager Emmings: So I do just want to note for the board that it's slightly different than what went out in the meeting package we just had some advice on which clauses to use so please use the one that's on the screen.

[2:56:00] Voice 10: I'll be happy to move that.

[2:56:02] Trustee Smith: Okay, thanks, Susan.

[2:56:04] Trustee Smith: Susan?

[2:56:04] Voice 10: So I move that the meeting be closed to the public

[2:56:08] Voice 10: in accordance with the community charter,

[2:56:10] Voice 10: part four, division three, section 91,

[2:56:14] Voice 10: the security of the property

[2:56:16] Voice 10: of the Islands Trust Conservancy,

[2:56:18] Voice 10: the acquisition, disposition,

[2:56:20] Voice 10: or expropriation of land or improvements,

[2:56:23] Voice 10: if the board considers that disclosure

[2:56:25] Voice 10: could reasonably be expected to harm the interests

[2:56:28] Voice 10: of the Islands Trust Conservancy Board,

[2:56:30] Voice 10: and that staff be invited to remain in the meeting.

[2:56:34] Voice 10: Law enforcement, if the Islands Trust Conservancy Board

[2:56:37] Voice 10: considers that disclosure could reasonably be expected

[2:56:40] Voice 10: to harm the conduct of an investigation

[2:56:42] Voice 10: under or enforcement of an enactment

[2:56:46] Voice 10: and that staff be invited to remain in the meeting.

[2:56:52] Voice 12: Do I have a seconder?

[2:56:57] Voice 12: Oh, sorry, I can second.

[2:56:59] Voice 12: Okay, thanks a lot, Trustee Elliott.

[2:57:02] Trustee Smith: All those in favor?

[2:57:05] Trustee Smith: Aye.

[2:57:05] Trustee Smith: Put your hand up. Okay, everybody's in favor, as am I. So the motion passes unanimously, and the meeting is adjourned. So I will then ask whoever's recording it, I guess we stop the recording now.

ADOPTED 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board ADOPTED Page 1 of 8 
Regular Meeting Minutes                           
March 14, 2023   
Islands Trust Conservancy Board 
Minutes of the Regular Meeting 
 
Date:  
Time:  
Location:  
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 
10:00 a.m. 
Electronic Zoom Meeting 
Islands Trust - Victoria 
200 - 1627 Fort Street, Victoria, BC 
 
Board Members Present Risa Smith, Vice Chair 
 Tobi Elliott, Board Member 
Grant Scott, Board Member  
 Susan Yates, Board Member 
  
Board Member Regrets Linda Adams, Chair 
  
Staff Present Clare Frater, Director, Trust Area Services, joined the meeting at 10:19 a.m., 
left the meeting at 10:45 a.m., and rejoined the meeting at 12:00 p.m. 
 Kate Emmings, Islands Trust Conservancy Manager 
 Jemma Green, Covenant Management & Outreach Specialist 
 Kathryn Martell, Ecosystem Protection Specialist 
 Nuala Murphy, Property Management Specialist 
 Carmen Smith, A/Communications and Fundraising Specialist 
 Wendy Tyrrell, Species at Risk Program Coordinator 
 Corlynn Strachan, Administrative Assistant/Recorder 
  
Public Present: There were four members of the public present electronically as attendees 
 
1. CALL TO ORDER 
In Chair Adams’ absence, Vice Chair Smith chaired the meeting, called it to order at 10:05 a.m. 
and acknowledged that the meeting was being held in locations across the territories of the 
Coast Salish people. 
2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 
The following additions to the agenda were presented for consideration: 
 Item 5.2.3 – Islands Trust Conservancy and Local Conservancy Relations 
 Viewing of Conservancy Hornby Island Silver Highway Herring Migration video (10 minutes), 
time permitting 
By general consent, the agenda was approved as amended. 
 

ADOPTED 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board ADOPTED Page 2 of 8 
Regular Meeting Minutes                           
March 14, 2023   
3. RISE AND REPORT 
Manager Emmings reported on the following items from the January 24, 2023 in camera 
meeting: 
 Item 4.1.3 - The Board approved a Morrison Waxler Biodiversity Protection Legacy Fund 
Grant of $4,614.75 to expand the existing Nighthawk Hill Natural Area Protection Tax 
Exemption Program (NAPTEP) covenant, North Pender Island. 
 Item 4.1.4 - The Board approved an Opportunity Fund Grant of $50,000 be awarded to 
the Nature Conservancy of Canada from the Opportunity Fund for the acquisition of 161 
hectares of land on Reginald Hill, Salt Spring Island. 
 Item 4.1.6 - The Conservancy received a legacy donation of $25,000 for the purposes of 
implementing a Western Screech-Owl Project research project on Link Island. 
4. MINUTES/COORDINATION 
4.1 Minutes of Meetings/Resolutions without Meetings 
4.1.1 Approval of January 24, 2023 Regular Meeting Minutes 
By general consent, the Islands Trust Conservancy meeting minutes of January 
24, 2023 were adopted. 
4.1.2 Record of Resolution without Meeting: ITC-RWM-2023-001 
Authorization for Trustee Smith to attend the BC Coastal Marine Strategy 
Forum, March 7-8, 2023. 
Received for information. 
4.2 Follow-up Action List 
Manager Emmings advised the Sallas Strata voted to proceed with the Sidney Island 
Ecological Restoration Project, allowing Fallow Deer eradication. Staff are targeting the 
July meeting for the covenant waivers to come forward to the Board for approval. 
Trustee Yates questioned if there has been communication between Islands Trust 
Conservancy and Mayne Island Trustees about their Fallow Deer problem. Manager 
Emmings noted the Board received correspondence from the Mayne Island Local Trust 
Committee regarding management of Fallow Deer and will recirculate the 
correspondence to the Board for information. Manager Emmings commented 
addressing the issue of Fallow Deer on Mayne Island would be a large and complex 
project. 
5. BUSINESS 
5.1 Items for Approval 
5.1.1 2023/24 ITC Work Plan – Request for Decision 

ADOPTED 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board ADOPTED Page 3 of 8 
Regular Meeting Minutes                           
March 14, 2023   
Manager Emmings presented the request for decision. 
Board members discussed the importance of focus on core work, concern about 
discouraging land owners who wish to donate land or covenants, risk assessment topics, 
support for the administrative needs component, reconciliation, the climate change 
project, outreach, high priority areas, and size of properties accepted for proposals.  
Ecosystem Protection Specialist Martell provided an update the Climate Change project. 
Manager Emmings provided a copy of the Climate Change Project Charter to Board 
members by email. 
ITC-2023-009 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to: 
1)    Focus work for the 2023/24 fiscal year on:  
 Land management, land securement and targeted outreach 
components of the Species at Risk Program; 
 First Nations engagement associated with development of the ITC Plan; 
 Administrative needs, including: policy updates, maintenance and 
updates to internal databases (land management and contact 
management), job description reviews for selected staff, review of the 
new website and technology used in the field; and 
 Working on proposals for conservation lands that are high priority; and 
 
2)    Delay the following work items until the 2024/25 fiscal year: 
 The Climate Change Project; 
 Revision of property management plans; 
 Development of a Reconciliation Action Plan; 
 Monitoring of lands that are protected by other conservation agencies 
(i.e. parks and nature reserves) or that are considered at low risk of 
covenant breach or trespass; 
 Outreach and communications that generate new conservation 
proposals; and 
 Placing of covenants on ITC Nature Reserves. 
CARRIED 
5.1.2 Referral, Development Variance Permit, GM-DVP-2022.4, Keats Island – 
Request for Decision 
Property Management Specialist Murphy presented the request for decision. 
Board members commented issues of engineered shorelines will come up again, 
recommended raising this issue with Trust Council. Chair Smith recommended 
discussing this under other business, time permitting. 
ITC-2023-010 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 

ADOPTED 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board ADOPTED Page 4 of 8 
Regular Meeting Minutes                           
March 14, 2023   
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to draft a letter to the 
Gambier Island Local Trust Committee regarding GM-DVP-2022.4 indicating 
that, based on the information provided, the Board does not believe that the 
project will negatively impact the Sandy Beach Nature Reserve and finds its 
interests to be unaffected by the application. 
CARRIED 
5.1.3 Referral, N. Pender Bylaw No. 232, Sidney Island – Request for Decision 
Manager Emmings presented the request for decision. 
ITC-2023-00-011 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy (ITC) Board direct staff to indicate to the 
North Pender Local Trust Committee that ITC’s interests are unaffected by 
Bylaw 232 (Sidney Island) and request that the North Pender Island Local Trust 
Committee consider future regulations that increase buffers and other 
protection measures to ensure that conservation values on Islands Trust 
Conservancy’s Sidney Island covenants are maintained. 
CARRIED 
5.1.4 Referral, Development Application RZ/OCP-2023-0018, Bowen Island - 
Request for Decision 
Property Management Specialist Murphy presented the request for decision. 
Board members discussed adding a dogs on leash directive to the resolution. 
ITC-2023-012 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to draft a letter to the 
Bowen Island Municipality regarding RZ/OCP-2023-0018 indicating that the 
Board recommends that if the application to amend the Land Use Bylaw and 
Official Community Plan goes forward to create a regional park over a series of 
properties at Cape Roger Curtis that: 
 No trails leading to or around Fairy Fen Nature Reserves are advertised, 
placed on public maps or on signage from the regional park; 
 Access into the park is not routed via Thompson Road and does not 
impact Bowen Island Crown Land or the Fairy Fen Nature Reserve; 
 There is public education around the sensitivity of the area of the 
regional park and the surrounding areas to human disturbance 
especially pertaining to wetlands; and, 
 There be a dogs on leash directive for this park. 
CARRIED 
5.2 Items for Discussion/Direction 
5.2.1 Annual Report 2022-23 Changes – Briefing 

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Communications and Fundraising Specialist Smith presented the briefing, and 
highlighted changes to format and internal procedures. 
Board members commented the briefing was clear. 
The meeting recessed for a break at 11:29 a.m. and returned 11:45 a.m. 
5.2.2 BC Coastal Marine Strategy Update (verbal) 
Chair Smith attended the Coastal Marine Strategy Stakeholder meeting put on 
by the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship (WLRS), noting they 
are working on two strategies, the Watershed Security Strategy and the Coastal 
Marine Strategy. They are conducting engagement and seeking input for two 
intentions papers: 
1) Intentions Paper for the Coastal Marine Strategy (closing April 14, 2023); 
and,  
2) Intentions Paper for the Watershed Security Strategy and Fund (closing April 
17, 2023). 
Board members discussed requesting the Executive Committee to respond to 
the request for input into both strategies. 
Director Frater advised there is funding through the Healthy Watersheds 
Initiative to create a portal. 
ITC-2023-013 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board request that the Executive Committee 
request a briefing regarding the Watershed Security Strategy and Fund and 
provide input on the Watershed Security Strategy by April 17, 2023 and the 
Coastal Marine Strategy by April 14, 2023. 
CARRIED 
5.2.3 Islands Trust Conservancy and Local Conservancy Relations 
Trustee Scott commented that it would be valuable for Islands Trust 
Conservancy Board and staff to attend local community events, such as the 
Herring Fest that just occurred on Hornby Island. Trustee Scott suggested that 
the ITC Communication Specialist and staff could assist with making 
connections.  
Trustee Yates noted that board members can be good liaisons with conservancy 
groups on their islands, noting that sending staff members is costly both 
financially and in terms of staff time.  
Board members discussed cost of sending Board members and staff to events, 
Board roles, deferring outreach until next year and advertising events in the 
Heron Newsletter. 
Manager Emmings highlighted various ways ITC is working on outreach 
including the Heron Newsletter, social media postings, eNews, and the land 

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monitoring program, and suggested staff could share event emails with ITC 
Board members.  
5.3 Correspondence 
5.3.1 Victoria Foundation - Cereus Fund Grant Letter, dated 2023-02-27 
Received for information. 
5.4 Updates for Information 
5.4.1 Public Acquisitions Report 
Received for information. 
5.4.2 Public Covenants Report 
Received for information. 
5.4.3 Budget Report 
Manager Emmings highlighted recent donations to the Opportunity Fund, and 
advised the audit report is on the agenda for the May 30, 2023 ITC Board 
meeting. 
5.4.4 Executive Committee Update (verbal) 
Trustee Elliott advised the last Executive Committee meeting was spent mainly 
approving agenda for Trust Council. There was a resolution to have Executive 
Committee work with staff on a strategic coordinated request to the Province to 
look again at the funding formula. 
Board members discussed the importance of a well laid out strategic plan to 
support the preserve and protect mandate, and meeting to discuss ITC Board 
strategic priorities prior to the July liaison meeting with Executive Committee. 
5.4.5 Financial Planning Committee Update (verbal) 
Trustee Yates noted the Financial Planning Committee made clear 
recommendations to Trust Council on recommended items to cut from the 
budget. In-person Trust Council meetings were put back on into the budget and 
Trust Policy Statement work was cut due to diminished staff capacity.  
Trustee Elliott and Director Frater provided an update on the Policy Statement 
amendment timelines. 
5.4.6 Trust Council Update (verbal) 
Trustee Elliott provided the following Trust Council update: 
 The budget passed with a tax increase of 2.06%. 

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 There were conversations regarding creating a corporate plan instead of 
programs driven budget, including revising strategic planning and 
matching corporate planning to budgeting functions. 
 There was a delegation that claimed the use of Coastal Douglas-fir 
ecosystem bioregional classification was being used to raise funds for 
the Islands Trust Conservancy. Trust Council approved a resolution to 
review materials on the website related to Coastal Douglas-fir. The 
Conservancy donate buttons have also been removed from the Islands 
Trust website. 
Board members discussed the impact of delegations on staff, response to 
delegations, and time spent on this particular delegation. 
ITC-2023-014 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Islands Trust Conservancy (ITC) Board raise concerns to Executive 
Committee regarding Trust Council decisions on conservation that have an 
effect on ITC work about which ITC Board has not had an opportunity to 
comment. 
CARRIED 
5.4.7 Trustee Roundtable (time permitting) 
Trustee Yates commented that there are drawbacks to the relatively low tax 
increase that Council approved, there is a forecasted tax increase to the Five-
year Financial Plan of 8.78%. When tax increases are artificially kept low by 
transferring funds from surplus, these low tax increases are passed on to future 
generations. 
Chair Smith advised there was not sufficient time for a full trustee roundtable. 
6. PUBLIC COMMENTS AND DELGATIONS 
A member of the public, Christine, requested to speak but due to technical difficulties 
was not able. Chair Smith recommend that the member send comments by email to 
itcmail@islandstrust.bc.ca. 
7. NEW BUSINESS 
None. 
8. NEXT MEETING 
The next Islands Trust Conservancy Board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday May 30, 2023, to be 
conducted electronically. 
9. CLOSED MEETING 
9.1 Motion to Close the Meeting 

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ITC-2023-015 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the meeting be closed to the public in accordance with the Community Charter, 
Part 4 Division 3, section: 90 (1) (d) the security of the property of the Islands Trust 
Conservancy; (e) the acquisition, disposition or expropriation of land or improvements, 
if the board considers that disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the 
interests of the Islands Trust Conservancy Board; and that staff be invited to remain in 
the meeting. (f) Law enforcement, if the Islands Trust Conservancy Board considers that 
disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the conduct of an investigation under 
or enforcement of an enactment;; and that staff be invited to remain in the meeting. 
CARRIED 
The meeting was closed to the public at 1:42 p.m. and recessed for lunch until 1:30 p.m. 
10. ADJOURNMENT 
By general consent, the meeting adjourned at 1:42 p.m. 
 
 
_________________________ 
Risa Smith, Chair 
 
Certified Correct: 
 
 
_________________________ 
Corlynn Strachan, Administrative Assistant/Recorder