Find out how CapU and our partners are working to ensure the incredible biodiversity, rich cultural heritage and great sustainable economic potential of Átl'ka7tsem / Howe Sound remains intact.
Creative Activity, Research & Scholarship (CARS) at CapU
Capilano University considers creative activity, research and scholarship integral to building and maintaining our culture of learning and innovation.
Through support and involvement in research, we are creating an intellectually rich environment where educators and learners actively contribute to reimagining the ways of understanding and functioning in the world.
Capilano University champions a broad range of faculty and student research activities: individual, collective, multi- and trans-disciplinary scholarly work.
Introducing Test Your Concept (TYC)
TYC is a new way for faculty to pitch CARS ideas and engage with community partner organizations.
The inaugural round of TYCs included partner organizations such as the Howe Sound Biosphere Region Initiative Society and the Islands Trust Conservancy. TYC saw lively back-and-forth discussions between faculty and community partners, which were focused on a range of wicked global challenges.
In response to their TYC pitch, the following five faculty has received CARS funding and support to run community-based research projects in their classes:
- Danielle Wills: Nature Observation with The Islands Trust Conservancy (descriptive statistics)
- Banda Logawa: Burn It or Ship It? An Analysis of Waste Production with Camp Fircom on Gambier Island
- Mark Wlodyka: Mapping Marine Debris Using Advanced Drone and LIDAR Technology with The Coastal Restoration Society and Bowen Island Municipality
- Roy Jantzen: Connecting Youth to Nature, Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals with The Howe Sound Biosphere Region Initiative Society
- Thomas Flower: Nature Monitoring with The Islands Trust Conservancy (ecology)
Do you have an idea that could benefit from CARS funding and support? Get in touch today!
Collaborating for a sustainable Átl'ka7tsem / Howe Sound
The Howe Sound Biosphere Region Initiative Society became a registered not-for profit organization in 2017, and played an integral role in having the region designated as Canada's 19th UNESCO Biosphere Region. This is an ongoing responsibility to manage and maintain the designation.
Along with their partners, they share a vision for a Howe Sound — known as Átl'ka7tsem, Nexwnéwu7ts, or Txwnéwu7ts in the Squamish Nation language — that is a model of sustainability, a thriving ecological region, an economic hub, and a place for people to live, work and play for generations.
To learn more, check out the Nchu'ú7mut/Unity Plan, a land and marine use plan created in collaboration with Indigenous peoples, partners from the business and non-profit sectors and local communities.
Vision, mission, purpose and values
An Átl'ka7tsem / Howe Sound where humanity and nature thrive.
We facilitate and support the organizing and planning of complex activities that bring allegiance to balancing development, conservation, and equity in the Átl'ka7tsem/Howe Sound region.
Strengthening collaboration in Átl'ka7tsem / Howe Sound Biosphere Region.
We do so in pursuit of three outcomes to key systemic challenges for the region:
Sustainable Development: An overarching, holistic land and marine use plan, mutually recognized and respected by First Nations, civil society, multi-sector stakeholders, and all levels of government.
Biodiversity Conservation: Needs are understood and defined, and measures are in place to ensure the conservation of critical ecological values.
Reconciliation, Equity & Inclusion: Needs and meaning for the Squamish Nation and all nations and communities in the region are learned and defined collaboratively, and plans for advancement are mutually supported.
In our mission, we are guided by the following values and frameworks:
Appreciation: We seek to recognize the best in people and places that surround us, to honour the history, stories and culture of those that came before us, and to value, protect, and celebrate those things that give us life.
Mutual Respect: We are open and adaptive in our interactions across cultural differences, acknowledging that all knowledge systems are validated and equally respected – that no worldview is above another.
Collaboration: We are unwavering in our desire to strengthen relationships and trust among people and communities, working together transparently and with care, to build our collective capacity for the benefit of the entire region.
Creativity: We see the strengths and possibilities in diversity and encourage the sharing of knowledge, ideas, and responsibility to co-create the innovative solutions required to solve our challenges, together.
Guiding Principles for our Governance model.
Frameworks
- UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme
- United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
- United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity
- UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
- 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets