Planning for a Sustainable Future: Approaches for Localizing the SDGs on Vancouver Island Symposium

Laurel moved to Vancouver in the summer of 2018 to do an internship with BCCIC. She had spent the previous year in Norway, busy with the first year of her Masters in International Environmental Studies. Prior to moving abroad, Laurel lived in Victoria and obtained a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria. She was a cheerleader for 9 years and has an impressive house plant collection (of over 20 plants!). Laurel is passionate about the intersection between policy, food, and environmental sustainability, and she wrote her Masters thesis on the barriers that environmentally-sustainable food businesses face. Laurel started working on SDG policy briefs during her internship at BCCIC and became fully immersed in the 2030 Agenda. She sees a powerful opportunity in the SDGs, and she loves to build meaningful partnerships through BCCIC to achieve these goals.

Danielle Noble-Brandt is a Canadian urban planner passionate about creating places where people flourish.  In her current capacity, she shares her vision for cities of the future and her belief in the importance of public sector leadership to advancing community livability through deliberate and intentional planning filtered through a public health lens. 

Over the past fifteen years, most recently as the Department Manager of Policy and Planning for the City of Kelowna, she has advanced policy direction on commencing a Healthy City Strategy, Climate Action Plan update, 2040 OCP, and various strategies for revitalizing neighborhoods. Her planning practice is characterized by an emphasis on collaborations across sectors, and advancing the built environment to improve health, equity, and connectedness for communities.  Today, what has captured her imagination, is the vast opportunity afforded by this moment in our history to evoke meaningful change. Important issues of unemployment, inequality, food insecurity, and climate vulnerability will require new systems and approaches to be considered. 

Danielle has an Honours degree in Science from the University of British Columbia, and a Masters in Environmental Studies, Planning, from Wilfred Laurier University.

Dr. Laura Loucks lives in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation Territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island with her husband and 2 teenage daughters. She is the Research Director for the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust (CBT) and Adjunct Professor at Royal Roads University in the School of Environment and Sustainability. Laura describes herself as a sustainable design practitioner and an academic who loves to learn. She began her career as an environmental planner for the Nova Scotia Parks and Protected Areas Systems Plan, having completed a Bachelors in Environmental Planning at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 

Later in her career, Laura completed her PhD in Resource and Environmental Management from Simon Fraser University and was Assistant Professor at Wageningen University, in the faculty of Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy, in The Netherlands. Since returning to Canada in 2009, Dr. Loucks joined the Associate Faculty at Royal Roads University and in 2015, she launched the first Royal Roads University-Clayoquot Biosphere Trust west coast field course on Biosphere and Sustainability, as a required course for the Royal Roads University MA program in Environmental Education and Communication. 

In 2016, Dr. Loucks and her colleagues launched the first Clayoquot Biosphere Region Vital Signs reports that included SDG goals and localized data. In 2019, local Vital Signs data was used to initiate a vital conversation on Sustainable Tourism in collaboration with the District of Tofino. In 2020, Dr. Loucks developed this conversation into a mini-on-line course on Regenerative Tourism for the west coast chapter of Leadership Vancouver Island. In addition, Laura has written and published numerous articles on sustainability and community conservation. Most recently, she contributed to several chapters in the ICUN publication Communities, Conservation and Livelihoods, edited by Dr. Anthony Charles, Director of the Community Conservation Research Network at Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax Nova Scotia.

Faye Missar is a public health practitioner with a breadth of experience working in/with rural, remote, and Indigenous communities to promote individual, family, and community health. Her special interest areas include children and youth, harm reduction, food security, health equity, rural health, and program evaluation.

Faye leads the Coastal Family Resource Coalition, a network of health and social service providers working on the west coast of Vancouver Island and is experienced at group facilitation and participatory processes.  In her role as Director of Community Health at the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust (CBT), Faye co-leads the development of the Clayoquot Sound's Vital Signs report alongside her colleague Dr. Laura Loucks, and leads the development of the Clayoquot Sound Living Wage calculation. Both research projects integrate community-based data with the sustainable development goals (SDG) to localize the SDG's as well as raise awareness of the global goals at a local level.