Measuring Community Health

The Measuring Community Health program attempts to bring together social, cultural, economic & environmental information to tell a story about the Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve Region.

The Clayoquot Biosphere Trust (CBT) is committed to a long-term monitoring program for the Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve.  This information will be used to tell the story of regional health through regular reporting.  A wide range of information will be presented in media and reports regularly in an easy to understand format.  This will:

• increase public awareness and inform residents for better decision-making
• identify regional priorities for local governments
• identify areas of success and achievement, information gaps and research priorities

We are currently working with local partners and experts in social and ecological sciences to determine the precise indicators we will be following. It is critical to ask the right questions and track the right indicators so that the information we gather is relevant, credible, measurable, and, ultimately, useful for all of us within the region.

Examples of indicators that we propose following include salmonberry flowering (climate change); women in leadership roles (gender equity); number and location of wildlife encounters (human-wildlife interactions); completion of Grade 12 (education); and extent of and biodiversity within eelgrass beds (marine health). Ultimately we will follow about 20 indicators, gathering data year-after-year throughout the Biosphere Region.

It is important that his information is not collected in a void and then shelved away. We are committed to sharing this information with our communities to help set priorities, direct education initiatives, develop action plans and track progress. In the short term we will be developing a 2012 “snapshot” of communities within the biosphere region to provide a baseline from which our project will build.

For more information contact:

Adrienne Mason
Research Coordinator
Clayoquot Biosphere Trust
Phone 250-725-2219  Cell 250-266-0141
adrienne (at) clayoquotbiosphere.org