CWB 2021 Annual Report – Final Draft

Reflections from the Executive Director

The Cowichan Watershed Board represents a community that is defined by our rivers, lakes, estuary and forests. Our Federally and Provincially designated heritage river and the salmon populations it supports have provided the Quw’utsun people with sustenance and cultural and spiritual wellness for millennia – and continues to do so today. Our watershed, and the groundwater aquifers beneath it, support all of us – farmers, mill workers, service and tourism providers – we all benefit from, and depend on, our rivers, lakes and aquifers. We all share this common bond. We are all river people.

By all measures, 2021 was not an easy year. Our watershed experienced both extreme drought and extreme flooding, resulting in significant hardships for many Cowichan Valley Residents. Our ability to work together on the ground (and in the water) and spend time with each other in the watershed we call home was challenged by the CoVid 19 pandemic. Yet, despite all this, the Cowichan Watershed board and our partners were able to take significant steps towards “whole of watershed” health for the Cowichan-Koksilah watershed in 2021, demonstrating a renewed commitment to collaboration and reconciliation in doing so.

This annual report provides some highlights from 2021 and speaks not only what we have achieved but, perhaps most importantly, how we have achieved it – by engaging respectfully, building bridges and supporting the aspirations of our partners and collaborators as we work together to ensure a more positive water future for our children and grandchildren.

Our foundational partnership between Cowichan Tribes and the Cowichan Valley Regional District continues to provide the CWB with a unique and successful model for implementing positive watershed change in our community. It is a model that provides strength and resilience, and that has been widely recognized throughout British Columbia and Canada. We very much look forward to working internally and with our partners to live up to the Quw’utsun teaching that has been shared with us – and adopted as one of our Principles:

Nutsamat kws yaay'us tth qa'

We come together as a whole to work together to be stronger as partners for the watershed.

Respectfully,

Tom Rutherford, Executive Director

Cowichan Watershed Board