Editor’s Note: If you missed this morning’s post, check out our list of great, local fresh fruit and vegetables you can find during the Winter HERE. Now, we join Colleen Dane as she gets us to take a look into the Comox Valley Regional Sustainability Strategy and what it means to things like our refrigerator. Here she is:

Not counting condiments, there are 34 things in my fridge right now. Thirty-four items of meat, veggies, fruit and dairy. Of those things, six are from the Comox Valley, eight are from Vancouver Island and 20 are from God-knows where else.

It’s the first time I’ve counted my fridge — like actually opened that door and, with pen and paper in hand, tallied its contents. When I’m in the grocery store, I do pay attention to the signs and where things are grown, and when I’m able to get to the Farmer’s Markets, or to local producers’ stores themselves, I’m always eager to pick up extra items.

It’s what I would describe as an average awareness of the issues around local food production — a key sustainable living element. By eating what is produced nearby, we are reducing the greenhouse gases produced by long-haul transportation, increasing the nutritional value of the food and creating security in our food source. While I understand all of that, there’s a priority standard that I’ve also developed. Sure, bananas are shipped a long way, but they’re a pretty key part of my diet. If they grew bananas here I would buy them over those form Ecquador, but they don’t, and I’m not willing to give them up.

The numbers in my fridge could become more important though. As it stands, 60 per cent of what’s in there isn’t even from Vancouver Island. The Regional Sustainability Strategy, which is being developed now, has proposed the target that by 2050, 60 per cent of the food consumed in the Comox Valley will be produced locally. Another 20 per cent, from the wider Island.

For my fridge, that would be a big change — but it’s exactly what the Sustainability Strategy is all about. How can we create those changes we need to make in order to protect the environment around us? As the population grows, each individual’s footprint needs to get smaller, or we’ll run out of ground — so what can we do?

The local food production goal is just one of the many broad sustainability targets the strategy set through its Strategic Visioning Phase beginning in mid-2008 and continuing till June 2009. They’re high-level goals about issues like climate change, water and energy conservation and environmental protection.

Those targets, in the third draft document released in June this year, are backed by a series of more focused goals, objectives and actions intended to help the community meet them.

For example, to increase the amount of local food that’s available, the strategy suggests developing policy to increase the productivity of agricultural land or re-establishing an agricultural research facility in the region. Right now, only 50 per cent of land protected under the Agricultural Land Reserve is used for food production. The Sustainability Strategy will look at why that is, and how the community can support an increase in that productivity.

The next draft of the plan, with even more detail, is coming back to the public next week. This will be a time for the community to see what kind of standard can be set — and how they can be achieved. It’s important that people get involved, because this strategy is totally voluntary right now. This is local residents coming together to say what they want in the future — and then taking it on themselves to get it done.

Unlike the Regional Growth Strategy, the Sustainability Strategy was taken on by local governments totally on their own accord. In late-2006 and early 2007, directors at the then-Comox Strathcona Regional District started talking about the increasing pressure to consider environmentally-friendly initiatives when making decisions.

They agreed that there was a new way of thinking afoot — but they struggled with which decisions were the right ones, what the true impact of their decisions were and in defining what their goals were when it came to sustainability.

They wanted the skills to be able to handle this new situation. They began a series of consultations with a firm called Holland Barrs — a company that has now turned into HB Lanarc — and specifically, with its partner Mark Holland, who’d earned a reputation for sustainable planning at a local government level.

Those discussions led to the decision that they would launch a full sustainability strategy. They received a grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to pay for half of it, and engaged HB Lanarc to produce it.

Not long after, the CSRD was split by the provincial government, and the new Comox Valley Regional District decided to continue with the sustainability strategy process.

The plan, titled Shape the Future, has the goal of becoming one of Canada’s most pragmatic sustainability strategies “to prepare the Comox Valley to prosper in the 21st century.” Holland emphasizes the fact that they don’t want to set pie-in-the-sky goals — they want to create targets made achievable by strong action plans. Plans that include actual changes the community can make, or actual policies government can put into place.

Eight main topics are addressed — food systems, housing and neighborhoods, environment and parks, transportation, infrastructure building, economic well-being and social health. The plan looks out 50 years into the future with its targets, saying for example, that by 2050 they want 100 per cent of sensitive ecosystems and riparian areas protected, and 70 per cent of degraded ecosystems of critical importance restored.

Their last round of public presentations focused on those broader targets and began to lay out the strategies for achieving them. For example, the broad target about protecting sensitive ecosystems is supported by a series of more specific goals and objectives, such as “achieving a clear understanding of ecosystems through inventory and mapping.”

Under each of those goals are lists of actions, policies, plans, early projects, potential partnerships and intermediate time lines. To reach the goal of understanding ecosystems better, the draft strategy suggests three actions, including enhancing the detail of existing sensitive ecosystem inventories by doing field checks.

Next week, consultants will release the draft of the full-developed strategy. This will be where those details plans that Holland has targeted will be unveiled. They’re inviting residents to come by for organic hot chocolate while they “learn how your community will take action on sustainability.” They’re goal for final adoption of the strategy is by the end of 2009.

The plan’s been led by HB Lanarc consultants, but has been developed with the help of the four local governments and working groups with 90 representatives — as well as with feedback from the general public through updates. That next update is coming up Nov. 30, with a public open house at the CVRD Board room between 6 and 10 p.m.

“The completion of the Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy this winter is really only the beginning,” said consultants in a release. “The key goal of the strategy is that it inspires new programs, policies, partnerships and technologies that will ultimately contribute to a highly sustainable region.”

So, while they can set all the goals, they won’t be met if the community doesn’t buy in and take initiative. The conversation it opens is one that has to be continued by the public, so that it’s not a document lost on a bookshelf.

For more talk around the Sustainability Strategy, check out www.cv2050.com, or the Regional Strategies area at www.comoxvalleyrd.ca.

On Sunday, Our Big Earth will look more at some of the strategy’s proposals, community discussion and what it means in relation to the Regional Growth Strategy.

Colleen Dane is a journalist in the Comox Valley and a self-diagnosed News Nerd. She’s lived here for only four years — but with deep family connections in the Valley, she’s awfully attached to the area and what happens to it.