ICSC is completing the final phase of a 3-year demonstration project, based in the Havana Province. This project brought Cuban and Canadian farmers together to share their experience in herd management and work towards increasing milk production from sustainable, pasture-based dairy units. This project is notable because it is entirely self sustaining. The project uses an excellent soil management system and solar energy and leaves very little environmental footprint. Women’s roles were enhanced and featured prominently in the project. Both farming communities are benefiting from the knowledge transfer and experience.

ICSC completed an inception mission in September of the Centering Women in Reconstruction and Governance Project (CWP). This project focuses on empowering women in 3 tsunami affected communities.

October 2006 to March 2007

ICSC has just completed the inaugural mission to introduce 3 Cooperants to the cities of Dar Es Salaam, Durban and Darkar.

Each cooperant will addressing the environmental impacts of urbanization in three African countries and working to increase the capacity of local authorities and their stakeholders to develop integrated long-term sustainability plans and short term demonstration projects.

The program will also contribute to the sustainability of all cities in the PLUS Network and to the development of the Network itself by supporting more learning between cities in Canada, cities in three African countries and cities in other developed and developing countries.

Sept 20th – 22nd, 2006 The City of Colima, Mexico, held its First International Conference/Workshop Sept 20-22, 2006, entitled: “Building a Vision for the Future: In Pursuit of Urban Sustainability”.  It was sponsored by the Municipality of Colima and their new Institute of Planning (IPCo).  The audience, comprised of representatives from the public, private and academic sectors, had the opportunity to learn about long-term planning frameworks, sustainable city visions, strategies and processes, and specific models of urbanization, presented to them by members of the PLUS Network (the cities of Chihuahua, Vancouver, Calgary and Whistler).

The event was a major success as it initiated the process of defining a long-term sustainable vision for the city of Colima. Francisco Molina, from the city of Vancouver made this comment after the Conference: “In general I believe it was a good exercise for everybody; Municipal and State representatives, developers, politicians and public interested in development issues in the area. The exercise of visioning their City many years into the future was exciting and perhaps the first opportunity to discuss these issues in an open and collaborative forum, and an excellent take off event for IMPLAN.”

Sept 13th and 14th, 2006

The PLUS Network hosted a Peer Exchange between representatives from the cities of Calgary, Whistler, Olympia, Portland, and Vancouver. The Peer Exchange allowed each city to present their overall sustainability work and their current work around participation. The participants were able to then engage in an in-depth discussion around ideas for moving forward and lessons from the experiences of other cities. Participants of the Peer Exchange commented that the 2 day session was invaluable, as it gave them exposure to different examples, concrete tools and best practices from the field. Everyone benefited from the “peer learning” environment, and participants were encouraged to know that they were not the “lone rangers” in their field of work. One participant commented:  “I felt the input from the other jurisdictions was extremely valuable. The opportunity to tell our story to other interested professionals was a great learning experience.”