Integrating the benefits of nature into cities

These in-their-own-words pieces are told to Patricia Lane and co-edited with input from the interviewee for the purpose of brevity.

Patricia Dijak is spending her retirement persuading local governments to design climate-adapted cities. 

Tell us about your project.

When I retired from engineering and product marketing, I wanted to make a contribution to improve lives today and protect what we love in the face of our changing climate. I enrolled in the University of Victoria’s Climate Action Planning program. My final project focused on integrating nature into cities to protect our health and wellbeing, lower energy and water use, and reduce carbon emissions.  For the past year, I have helped pull together a coalition of 15 climate, conservation and community groups, representing over 1,000 people, to lobby South Vancouver Island local governments to incorporate nature-based solutions into infill housing and urban design. 

We have a housing crisis and a biodiversity crisis. The Salish Sea coast has endangered Garry Oak and Arbutus ecosystems that exist nowhere else in Canada, and now, only in urbanized areas. Housing is often unaffordable. I want to address both issues for climate justice and equity.

Many cities were planned when we saw ourselves as separate from nature. Impermeable surfaces cause dangerous urban heat islands and flash floods. Biodiversity loss accelerates because wildlife and pollinators depend on vegetation, waterways and shorelines where buildings and roads are built. 

Urban ecosystems with trees, shrubs, pollinator gardens and healthy watersheds protect cities from extreme heat, flooding, drought and pollution. Climate-safe buildings are easier to insure, cost less to heat and cool, and reduce demand for health care. This approach fosters economic development and sustains private property value. It also reduces carbon emissions by 20 per cent on average, as people walk and bike more and drive less. 

B.C. municipalities must revise their official community plans by 2025. This is an opportunity to bake nature-based solutions into the core planning function. We help find funding, encourage decision-makers to take “best in class” training with the Natural Assets Initiative and encourage public input from ecosystem experts, community volunteers and Indigenous communities.  

In September 2024, the Union of B.C. Municipalities asked the province to include requirements for climate resilience, tree canopy retention and expansion, and stormwater management in its housing density mandates.

How did you get into this work?

Throughout my career, I helped customers match their needs with new product designs that deliver both corporate and community objectives. If we are to have safe, liveable cities, we must have more green infrastructure around homes. Nature-based solutions can be thought of as providing infrastructure and making dense living safer. 

What makes it hard? 

There can be resistance to new approaches, even those already proven. New York City is planting more trees and gardens to increase health and reduce climate impacts in low-income neighbourhoods. Old shipping piers are being turned into biodiverse urban wildlife and pollinator corridors. Gibsons, B.C., led North America in valuing natural assets as infrastructure, using ponds for stormwater management and water storage, providing a lower-cost and longer lifespan solution than engineered infrastructure. Rotterdam’s Boszoom (“Forest Edge”) neighbourhood is planned around a “green-blue heart,” substituting natural gathering spaces for hardscape public squares. Singapore touts itself as a “city in nature,” incorporating interconnected urban green spaces and wildlife corridors. 

What gives you hope?

Community volunteers are knowledgeable, committed and creative. The Bring Back The Bluebirds Project is re-establishing breeding populations and habitat for Western Bluebirds that went extinct on Vancouver Island in 1995 due to Garry Oak removal. The Victoria Community Association Network produced maps showing public-private networks of Garry Oak ecosystems throughout the city. The Friends of Bowker Creek Society is restoring our urban watershed to see birds and salmon return. These are good for all nature, including humans. 

Do you think the way you were raised impacted you?

My parents arrived here after the Second World War from Slovenia. They brought an ethic of relationship with, and care for, the land and water. For example, bees are spirit messengers, teaching the value of hard work and problem-solving. I was raised to see nature as our partner and teacher.

What do you see if we get this right?

Cities embrace the ecosystems in which they are located. Everyone has access to the more-than-human world. Life is more resilient. 

What would you like to say to young people?

We need your out-of-the-box thinking and passion for solutions. If you find yourself disagreeing with people, ask them what their goal is. Most of us want liveability. Nature can bring us together.

What about older readers?

So much of the heavy lifting in community groups is done by retirees. Thank you. We need your collective memories, so we learn from mistakes of the past and build a better world.