A $25,000 cash influx builds on the pursuit of inclusivity and creativity endeavours of the Gorge Waterway Action Society.
The group, dedicated to ongoing health and environment improvements on the Gorge with a focus on its crown jewel Esquimalt Gorge Park, earned the funding through Wawanesa Climate Champions: Local Grants.
Gorge Waterway Action Society will use the grant to host a series of events featuring local LGBTQ2S+ artists, musicians, and climate leaders to promote knowledge-sharing and belonging.
“It allows this programming to happen, otherwise it wouldn’t,” executive director Brad Procter told the Victoria News.
It was the next logical step for the society, which has been doing climate and interpretive work for a while now, slowly combining the concept of restoration with art, music and community – “leaning into” concepts making access to nature and climate work specifically with equity-deserving groups.
“This summer Clover (Taylor) and our climate coordinator Shania (LaFreniere) came up with this concept to take this next step, which we’re able to do with this funding.”
The LGBTQ2S+ community is often still left out of conversations about climate change, Taylor said.
“We wanted to emphasize and uplift their contributions.”
The first in the series will be art-based, including different artists to lead community art initiatives and queer musicians alongside queer climate leaders and educators.
“It’ll all be different experts in different parts of environmental work,” Taylor said. The communal learning will also celebrate community and building relationships.
The second will focus on youth stewardship, “inviting queer youth and allies from local high schools to do different workshops and seminars led by queer leaders,” Taylor said. Providing examples of queer success in the environmental field, with leaders speaking on their work and pathways to that work, aims to help address systemic barriers.
The final two events blend the two previous events with hands-on ecological restoration in Esquimalt Gorge Park.
“It’s taking the knowledge from the two more seminar-workshop-based events and putting it into real action on the ground,” Taylor said.
The project will hold workshops and training sessions to equip community members with practical skills for climate adaptation and mitigation, such as ecological restoration. Among the initiatives planned is the hands-on rehabilitation work of Esquimalt Gorge Park, which will result in upwards of 600 native plants being placed throughout the vulnerable coastal habitat.
Gorge Waterway Action Society is among three B.C. environmental groups earning grants from the Wawanesa Climate Champions. The other two recipients are the Langley Environmental Partners Society and the Vancouver-based Environmental Youth Alliance.
Both groups have similar goals and projects to the Gorge plans, focusing on planting native species, improving waterways and offering hands-on ecological restoration work.
“The Gorge Waterway Action Society was selected for the Wawanesa Climate Champions: Local Grants as their initiative aligns with all three pillars – Environmental Guardians, Community Protectors, and Youth Stewards – of our program and focuses on the people on the frontlines building a more climate resilient community,” said Michel Rosset, a media relations manager with Wawanesa. “Their application also stood out for its commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive climate movement through the creation of safe spaces for LGBTQ2S+ people to share and learn about the impacts of a changing climate.”
Visit gorge.ca to learn more about the Gorge Waterway Action Society.
