Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting Olds College to appear before the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on its study examining urban conservation practices in Canada.
My name is Gord Koch. l'm a faculty member with the School of Environment. For the past 12 years at the college, I have delivered courses related to landscape design, management, and implementation, with a focus on best management practices related to sustainable landscapes. Prior to joining the college, I spent just under 30 years in landscape planning, management, and implementation of projects, primarily in residential community and parks development in the Toronto and Calgary areas.
Within the context of this invitation by the committee and on behalf of Olds College, I am providing a perspective on urban conservation as it relates to the development and delivery of programs and courses at the college, coupled with the values and principles promoted at the institution.
Olds College will be celebrating its centennial in 2013, marking 100 years of quality education and training. Over the past century, Olds College has contributed to successful careers for many generations of learners. With pride, the college can link the values that underpinned the first course offerings of the Olds School of Agriculture and Home Economics in 1913 with those reflected in courses offered today. We're located about 95 kilometres north of Calgary and 60 kilometres south of Red Deer, so we're on the golden corridor, so to speak.
The college awards certificates, diplomas, applied degrees, and bachelor degrees designed to meet the needs of both learners and the communities served by this college. Olds College programs offer learning opportunities in agriculture, horticulture, land and water resource management, animal science, business, fashion technology, and apprenticeship training. The college works with industry partners and clients to develop and deliver a range of training programs and products designed to meet desired specifications. These outreach services are offered throughout the province of Alberta, across Canada, and internationally.
The School of Environment offers programs in several key areas. We have land-based programs, which include land agent, environmental stewardship, and land reclamation programs. Our horticulture-based programs include arboriculture, landscape management, production horticulture, and golf course management.
The college, and specifically the School of Environment, have been and continue to be placed in a unique position of bridging not only the rural and urban fabric, but also rural urban centres and metropolitan urban centres—in other words, small town and big city. The content of the programs and their alignment with stakeholder needs in industry and the public sector lend to and emphasize aspects from the subject of urban conservation.
When one seeks to find information related to urban conservation, the breadth and depth of this subject is far-reaching and varied. Whether the focus is safe water supply and quality, protecting and enhancing biodiversity, and/or evolving technologies related to maintenance and operation of infrastructure services, many aspects may or will fall under the urban conservation umbrella.
Certainly, various stakeholders and interest groups will leverage those aspects that align with proposed goals and outcomes for each party, so a question that can be posed is: is it about urban conservation, restoration, preservation, replication, or all of the aforementioned? The college's School of Environment aligns its programs with social, economic, and environmental measurables as they relate to each of the content areas.
More specifically, in terms of ecosystem services, this would include soils, water, vegetation, materials, health, and well-being. Through these filters, various industry sector developments can be assessed at pre-development, development implementation, and post-development stages. Within the urban context, this includes programming and courses that deliver and promote best management practices in the areas of low-impact development, diverse ecosystems, and healthy environments.
Through the college's ongoing partnerships with provincial and federal agencies, in addition to the school's collaboration with its several industry advisory committees and associations, Olds College has provided, and continues to provide, students and stakeholders with the avenues and tools necessary to provide progressive processes and protocols that contribute, establish, maintain, and promote attributes that can be considered as aligned with urban conservation.
That is our briefing. We will certainly entertain questions as this moves on.