2003/04 – 2005/06 SERVICE PLAN Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection

Strategic Context

Vision

The ministry's vision is a clean, healthy and naturally diverse environment that enriches people's lives, now and in the future.

Mission

The ministry provides leadership and support to British Columbians to help them limit the adverse effects of their individual and collective activities on the environment, while fostering economic development and providing recreational opportunities.

Organizational Values and Principles

The ministry's leadership role in managing British Columbia's natural resources in an environmentally sustainable manner while enabling economic growth is guided by the following organizational values and principles.

Organizational Values

Our organizational and staff behaviour is informed by the following values:

• We respect our staff and create a healthy workplace that sets and communicates clear expectations, and supports a culture of staff development, recognition, reward and opportunity.
• We ensure that professional accountability and discipline characterize our behaviour.
• We focus on achieving high environmental standards through a culture of continuous adaptation to change.
• We strive to consistently meet agreed-upon client requirements and deliver our services in a transparent, fair and timely manner.
• We are committed to continuous improvement in the environmental management of the province.

Principles

We are guided by the following principles to sustain our vision and achieve our goals:

• We believe a sustainable environment is central to providing economic and social opportunities for all British Columbians.
• We believe that all sectors of society are responsible for ensuring a sustainable environment — government, business, industry and citizenry.
• We believe a sustainable environment is a naturally diverse environment.
• We believe that citizens have the right to safe, healthy communities.

Strategic Shifts

In Service Plan 2002/2003 – 2004/2005, the ministry recognized that significant changes in its business methods were required to meet the government's and society's objectives for the environment and economy. To address this challenge, the ministry developed a set of strategic shifts. These shifts will enable the ministry to change its business practices to reduce costs and focus efforts in areas where the greatest risks to the environment exist. The ministry has made significant progress in realizing its strategic shifts, but challenges remain in completing the transition.

Over the past decade, competition for ministry resources (between new priorities and traditional activities) and increased regulation have resulted in service backlogs, poor environmental monitoring and reporting systems, and limited capacity to conduct research or gather scientific information. As well, public perception of the ministry as having sole responsibility for environmental issues set unreasonable expectations. The ministry is actively pursuing opportunities for sharing the responsibility of protection and stewardship of the environment among governments, First Nations, communities, academic institutions, industries, volunteer organizations and individual British Columbians.

This is a challenging agenda. However, as its strategic direction evolves, the ministry is establishing clear roles for itself, industry and other stakeholders in gathering, monitoring and reporting environmental information, achieving environmental objectives and identifying economic opportunities. New service delivery approaches also create opportunities to focus efforts, increase innovation and share responsibility. Some key initiatives are shown in the following table.

Strategic Shifts and Key Initiatives