Solutions: Workforce

Build the Watershed Workforce

A high school grad’s first job getting their feet wet restoring a wetland. A heavy equipment operator decommissioning a logging road. An engineer installing greywater recycling. An Indigenous Guardian monitoring water quality. A software designer creating a water data app. This is the watershed workforce – a sector of frontline workers who support the maintenance, restoration, and  improvement of healthy watersheds.

Why We Need to Grow this Workforce

Water insecurity has become a major risk to BC’s economy, communities and ecosystems. We need boots on the ground, innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders to develop solutions to the challenges we face in our watersheds. This is both an urgent need and an enormous  opportunity, one that can bring communities together and shape the future health and well-being of the province.

Poised for Growth

BC’s watershed sector is already a major employer,  supporting nearly 48,000 jobs and contributing $5 billion to BC’s economy. These are jobs at all career stages and specialization levels across the province from rural communities to urban neighbourhoods. 

What Will it Take?

  1. Investment – $100 million invested annually through the Watershed Security Fund is projected to add 13,000 jobs over the next 10 years, delivering lasting economic stability to local, rural, and remote communities. 
  2. Training – a BC Centre for Watershed Security can connect colleges, Indigenous training programs, trade schools, and community organizations to help young people, professionals, and under-employed workers apply their skills in good, local, family-sustaining jobs that protect, manage, and restore the watersheds we all rely on
  3.  Innovation – policies and actions that spur innovative solutions and technologies to tackle BC’s watershed priorities, and that bring together entrepreneurs, researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders and communities to strengthen skills, create jobs, and drive local problem-solving.

86% of British Columbians support training frontline workers in all regions of the province to monitor, restore and manage freshwater

Campagins

Campaign Name

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