Estuary Day 2025
Youth Leadership Cohort
Past Projects
Conserving and Protecting Water for a Climate Resilient Future
This 26-month Project aimed to produce measurable results in conserving and protecting the Cowichan and Koksilah Watersheds that salmon, other wildlife, and humans, including the Quw’ut’sun, all rely on. We aimed to effectively engage our local community, especially young people across cultures, in leadership and team-building training, workshops, community awareness-raising and effective hands-on water conservation and restoration projects – projects that restore riparian zones and shorelines while honouring indigenous knowledge and building skills to make a real and sustainable impact both in our watersheds and in the lives of young people.
Our project team at the Cowichan Estuary Nature Centre committed to increasing community engagement and cohesion through a range of local restoration and conservation projects that protected local fish habitat, drinking water and our watersheds, and buffered against climate impacts, all while offering opportunities to revive our connection with the landscape and dig into new possibilities.
Our final numbers from this project were:
| Reduction of water consumption = 11,356 liters |
| Area of shoreline protected, stabilized or improved = .05 hectares |
| Area of habitat in which management or restoration actions have been implemented through project activities = .55 hectares |
| Amount of indigenous plants, trees and shrubs planted = 2,325 plants/trees/shrubs |
| Percentage of indigenous plants, trees and shrubs planted that survived = 547% of plants/trees/shrubs |
2019-2022 Eco-Action Grant
We are grateful to Environment and Climate Change Canada for providing primary funding for these projects, and to all our community partners who have provided encouragement, as well as in-kind or matching funds to support this work.
Thank you to our additional partners and sponsor!
Cowichan Tribes, the Cowichan Watershed Board, the Cowichan Community Land Trust, the BC Conservation Foundation, the Somenos Marsh Wildlife Society, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the Cowichan Valley Regional District, including Areas D and E, the Municipality of North Cowichan, the Cowichan Valley Naturalists, the Cowichan Lake and River Stewardship Society, the Outdoor Education Society – Story Trails, Sh-hwuykwselu Busy Place Streamkeepers, BC Nature Trust, SeaChange Marine Conservation Society, the Earth Guardians – Cowichan Valley, School District 79, Polster Environmental Services